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catgirl-pawbs · 1 year

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ROSIE HOBBYING UPDATE

though,,, I've said it a few times in a few places but I'm super enamoured with the concept of having different names for different contexts though I've been bad at actually doing it and the name I'd like to use in online spaces / for people I don't know irl is Ryuuka (I know I had another online alias/name before that i streamed under for 2yrs but due to Events I now hate being called that so all 3 of u that know it that name is dead to me now please forget) so I suppose instead I should write

✨🎀RYUUKA HOBBYING UPDATE🎀✨

LONG POST INCOMING sorry if I take up ur whole dash

so I tried to search my blog for the "hobbying" tag to see what I have and have not posted recently but lo and behold,

tumblr is truly the functional of webbedsites, I KNOW ITS THERE I PUT IT THERE now please show me !

except it won't if course because it sucks.

so anyway I'm gonna start typing about things and hope I get everything I haven't posted and nothing I have.

something like three weeks ago, I finally got to play a match of Warhammer 40k with my older brother! this had been in the making in a way since 2014(-ish I don't remember), when this same brother introduced myself and my other brother to the concept of Warhammer and all three of us bought models. sadly both brothers quickly discovered the "building and painting" portion of the hobby and promptly dropped out, one of them giving his T'au models to me because I LOVED THIS SHIT.

anyway I think I posted about all this before and that Match In Question wherein I took 500pts of Grey Knights (Brother-Captain, Terminator Squad, Strike Squad) against my brother's 500pts Imperial Guard (Commissar, Guardsmen regiment, 3x Mortar Crew models, Sentinel, Leman Russ)or something like that I didn't read his list. Unfortunately this battle ended with my noble Grey Knights getting summarily decimated and right tabled by the mighty power of the autocannon-equipped Leman Russ if that bastard Russ wasn't already dead I'd kill him myself

again I'm fairly sure I've posted about this before so I'll stop there and not add images.

also before I continue (to explain why points counts might seem weird to other 40kplayers) I should note that I have been and will continue to be playing Fifth Edition Warhammer 40k, because those are the books that I have. New books are hellishly expensive and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to reasonably use wahapedia so anyone who is going to tell me to play a more recent edition please kindly do one of the following;

1.) shush.

2.) buy me the books urself since you can afford it

3.) go get intimate with a cactus.

Now! about a week ago, a little less, I got to play ANOTHER match of 40k! a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one. this time with a friend who has an adjacent interest in similar sort of games and who helped me build the felt-and-aquariumplant terrain pieces Im certain I posted pictures of before though I can't go check >:|

This match was again 500pts and featured both my lovely new terrain and the following armies;

TYRANIDS. >Tyranid Prime (boneswords, devourer) >3xRaveners (rending claws) >5x Ymgarl Genestealers >10xHormagaunts (adrenaline glands) >10xTermagaunts (devourers)

GREY KNIGHTS. >Brother-Captain (mastercrafted storm bolter, mastercrafted nemesis force sword) >5xTerminator (mastercrafted storm bolter [justicar], mastercrafted nemesis force sword [justicar]) >5xStrike Squad (nemesis force halberds [all], mastercrafted storm bolter [justicar])

it was great! took about 4 hours because I hadn't memorized everything yet and my friend/opponent was new to 5th but we had a good time despite getting real exhausted by the end of it there are too damn many numbers to remember

I'm still super happy with how the new terrain looks!! sure it's very Amateur Hour and doesn't look ~realistic~ but I love it and am very proud of it!

Unfortunately in this match, the Grey Knights not played by me this time again tasted bitter defeat. I begin to think that list I made just sucks. or that the army needs a larger point total to make a functional list. further experimentation needed.

First blood was taken by the Knights shooting down a few(2) Hormagaunts, which was repeated in the next turn gunning down another 5 of them. the remaining gaunts took shelter for their lives behind a small copse of trees, though the Knights' Terminators quickly closed to finish their prey.

the Nids took revenge in the Genestealers flanking and stealing the jeans off the Strike Squad, without a single loss.

Finally came the crushing melee of the Raveners charging the Terminators and Captain from the cover of the ruins, slowly inflicting death (with great difficulty and losing one of their number due to those incredible 2+saves), eventually being joined by the Tyranid Prime and Genestealers in finishing off the stragglers.

the Termagants... yeah. those guys were there. they mostly just hung around. fired off 40?-ish shots and inflicted a total of 1 wound. good job guys. worth every point, truly.

Unfortunately because I failed to teach the game and remember the rules properly, this match was unbalanced, as the Terminators were not making 2 melee attacks per turn as they should've and I'd forgot to roll for the Nids instinctive behaviour rules (though the only difference that would've really made was the already useless gants running for cover if they failed)

It was a good learning experience and we had fun though!! surely we'll have a better and more heated match next time! ฅ⁠^⁠•⁠ﻌ⁠•⁠^⁠ฅ

that kaomoji looks kinda haunted,,

In other news! yesterday I finally took the time to get my printer in Operational Condition again! this means that, after being more than a month with only one arm, my Knight Armiger Warglaive proxy (model courtesy of u/johnbearross on reddit) is finally fully operational! catgirl very extremely excited about this one

additionally, though I do need to print another warglaive and two helverins still, I've started on printing the bigger boy, a Questoris Knight Paladin proxy (model credits the same), something I've been excited to do for forever and the next step towards the biggest finalest goal; the Imperator Titan

base and left leg printed (6h each), right leg in production (another 6h) (also I know the quality is bad because of the flash but my kitchen's lighting is awful and I promise without it looks worse) (don't mind the bag of rice in the bg, girl's gotta eat)

FINALLY, the most recent development in Ryuuka's Hobbying;

MY BOYS??!??! MY BEAUTIFUL LOVELY SPECTACULAR BOYS????? THEY ARRIVED TODAY!!

bit of a story on this one, but first; I know that I told one of my dear friends like 6months ago that the next time I bought gunpla of get one for u too and we sat down and picked one out for u and everything and I didn't forget I swear but I shouldn't've even bought these boys since I have a lot of debt going on, the only reason I did is that on god man I need a distraction project or the depression is gonna Get To Me (not that it doesn't already but,) so like. When I actually have spare money instead of spending money I don't have I WILL get u that gunpla and we will build them together I didn't and am not gonna forget.

Okay so the deal with these boys is that I was talking to a friend recently about how I really like the appearance of Mass Production Mobile Suits over the special Gundam suits (unpopular opinion but I hate gundam suits' horns/crests, I think they look so so silly), in particular I love the look of the DaggerL and the Rgm-79 GM, but I really don't like the GM's helmet, I feel that it dramatically detracts from my man's vibes since the GM is made of angular and square segments and then the helmet is ROUND and also the visor is really large and open, giving it something of a 'friendly' (anthropromorphizing, I know) look that really doesn't suit the rest of it's design. In the same moment I was lamenting this design contradiction, a guncannon came on screen, which has a helmet with a narrower visor, and a- well I guess it's called a visor too but the shade thing some helmets have like a built-in imitation ballcap thing and anyway the Guncannon's head design gives it a much more 'serious' look that I feel would fit great on the GM, and the GM's more open and round design would fit right in with the Guncannon's rounded limbs and fuckoff huge shoulder-mounted cannon barrels.

So immediately in that conversation I had something of an epiphany of this and decided that I HAVE TO make a headswap of those guys and NOW IM DOING IT except what I need right now is a project so we're taking it a couple steps further

I'm gonna trim these guys all out of the runners, file the nubs, label all the parts with masking tape and little baggies, swap the head parts, then going one colour/runner at a time, prime them black, paint them, panel line them, sticker them, top coat them, and ONLY THEN will I finally start assembling them

I've never painted a gunpla before but the best way to start is a headfirst dive into conkcrete babey let's get it

also I want to try weathering on my GM, nevermind that I've never tried it before and have no idea how, and each kit will be getting a different topcoat; glossy for the Guncannon because I want my boy to look like fun lil candy apple lad, and matte for my GM because I want it to be a semi-realistic Setpiece build.

also been thinking about utilizing the power of masking tape mid-painting process to add stripes of red to GM's arm&leg armour, but currently unsure if I want to follow through with the idea.

kay I think that's everything that's a lotta words I've been typing for forever it's 3am im not checking for typos I'm gonna sleep now goodnight gamers, nyan~

#hobbying #warhammer40k #gunpla #this took me over two hours to type up and shouldve been like four posts but fuck it y'all get it all in one #hope someone enjoys reading my nonsense #didnt have a pinned post so this gets pinned for a little while to force more people to see it you're welcome :>

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twotangledsisters · 10 months

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Quick Update

So I've been going through some stuff, from anxiety attacks to depressive episodes to insomnia... Just not a good mental healthy week! I've got food, I'm taking my meds, don't worry about it! Just know that because of that, I'm not very 'interactive' on tumblr!

Things aren't always tagged correctly, the dashboard can be overstimulating... It's not about any specific person or specific posts! (except whoever the fuck is reposting my art without consent that specific person is in my bad books)

If you wanna continue chatting about fandom stuff with me though, I am very active on discord and will happily exchange discord with mutuals!

Yesterday I found some of my art reposted without my PERMISSION and without even giving CREDIT. This is terrible for a number of reasons:

1.- It's disrespectful!

2.- AI art theft made easier by spreading my stuff around!

3.- The continued separation of the artists from the art within fandom spaces making fandom into a less enjoyable environment for artists! Especially for small artists who average less than 10 notes on an art piece only to find their stolen art receiving tons of attention! Can you imagine how that feels? I don't have to use imagination! IT FEELS LIKE CRAP.

DEEP BREATH.

Yep, I am still emotional. But I brought this up just to say I will be using watermarks from now on. I will also probably be going back and editing old pieces to add in watermarks.

It's upsetting that this is needed.

But it is.

The normalization of just taking art because all you have to do is 'right click', 'save image'.... The fact fanfic authors are having to insert scripts into their fics so people can't 'copy and paste' their work... All of this is so depressing to me.

And I don't have the mental health to really muse on it.

So yeah... I would love to stay in contact with people on discord, and I will be posting some art later today before the depressing reality in which we live overcomes me and I quit art for another year or two because of it (trying not to do that again).

I'm not leaving tumblr, but right now tumblr and its lack of respect for artists and authors and just those who create stuff... It's making me sad. So until I stop being sad I will be less present on here. And that means that I might have a good day where I'm active followed by going inactive again... I just don't know.

I would like to start posting my art on other more effective platforms but haven't actually decided which ones yet. So any suggestions from artists are greatly appreciated!

I hope you are all doing well! And although I probably don't need to say it, but in case there are worries: my fic is not being affected by any of this, daily updates as usual! Prince Eugene and Three Thieves to return shortly!

I also have a nearly complete AU of the AU where Cass went ahead and cut Rapunzel's hair when they were 8 and 4 years old....!

#update #ramble #rambles

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opal-owl-flight · 2 years

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hey, i just want to be real with you real quick, and this isn't me trying to attack you. i hope you can hear me out.

i loved your art. and i loved your headcanons and stories! you are very talented, genuinely. however, this whole susie thing has really gotten out of hand, and i feel as if you're missing the key point as to the reason why everyone is upset.

this is your blog. it is! you can post whatever you want here! i don't doubt that for one second and i'm a huge Do-Whatever-The-Hell-You-Want advocate. however, when you put something in the main tags on a site like this, it goes out beyond your account. beyond mutuals and followers in your circle reblogging your content. everyone can see it, whether they want to or not. you keep telling people to just unfollow you or block the tags you use when you post potentially triggering content, but the vast majority of people who are having problems with your content aren't your followers, they are just random people randomly stumbling on graphic imagery while in the tags. they have to see it first to even be able to know to block you or your tags, which i feel is unfair to those who want to simply search their fav's hashtag.

this isn't me yelling at you to stop making the content you want to make. freedom to express yourself is so fucking important, i get it, please keep making the content you want to make even if it goes against the grain of everyone else's headcanons, but at the same time, no one should have to stumble upon gore or torture art in any public tag, anywhere, especially if it's not under a readmore or properly tagged as such. period! and i get you have certain tags for organization but i feel as if there are easy ways to get around that as well if you put your mind to it.

this isn't me trying to scold you like a parent or anything. i also do not care for susie even in the slightest and am not telling you this because i'm a number 1 susie stan or something. but this situation has made a few dear friends very upset and the solutions are very simple, everyone still has the opportunity to walk away happier and doing their own thing. that's all. no need to respond to this if you don't want to, and if you read this far, thank you for your time.

Youre good! And what I got from this is to place trigger warnings in the tags (another anon has also suggested that and Ive added the needed tags on the posts that need them).

And the most triggering art Ive put under a readmore, actually! So the people who still see them…yo, I have no idea what yall are going off about. Theyre under readmores with warnings on them.

(I looked through the legacy arc tag. All of the torment stuff is actually under a readmore… Ive added the trigger tags too, cept for one post bc for SOME REASON TUMBLR DOESNT WANT TO ADD IT IN)

#Im still using the tag bc shes IN THE ART #I actually dont usually put text-only posts under the main tags most of the time #but yeah the trigger tags are there and most of the content’s under readmores #opal owl hoots

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serendipitous-magic · 3 years

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What is your writing advice for young people who want to write fanfiction and original stories in the near future?

If this is just Way Too Much, skip to the end (#16). My most important piece of advice is there. I also happen to think #5 is pretty good.

-_-_-_-

1) Literally just write. Write whatever you want, and do a lot of it.

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2) You don’t have to post everything. In fact you don’t have to post anything. You can, don’t get me wrong, but it can be intimidating to sit down and think “I will now write something that other people will see and read and judge with their eyeballs.” Because that’s probably gonna lead to nerves and writer's block. Just write down the ideas that you have, the things you want to write, whatever’s in your brain that you want to explore and expand upon and make into something. And then if you want to, share it. Or don’t share it. I have plenty of half-baked ideas and documents and random story chapters and shit hidden away on my Google Drive that will never see the light of day, for a whole number of reasons. I wanted to write it but it wasn’t ~Spicy~ enough to warrant posting, or it’s only like an eighth of a good idea, or it’s like one scene with no story around it, or it’s just something incredibly self-indulgent I just wanted to write for my own enjoyment.

Point being, don’t write for other people. Don’t write so that other people can read it; write what you want, write for yourself, and then if you want to share it, do.

_-_

3) You can pretty much ignore any and all of these for fanfiction. In fact, you can ignore pretty much any rules or guidelines you want for fanfiction. Fanfic is a sandbox. You don’t have to be a “professional writer” to post fic. No one expects you to be Stephen King or Margaret Atwood. Fanfic is just for playing in a fandom and having fun. If you wanna write a 50 chapter slow burn with very little plot aside from the OTP slowly getting to know each other, and no real stakes or central conflict, I guarantee people would read that. Really, fanfiction is the Old West of writing: lawless, wild, unpredictable, and free.

However, here are the rules you must follow:

-Separate your paragraphs. (I’m sure you know this already, but I’m gonna say it anyway just in case.) Do not post one big block of text. Make a paragraph break when someone new is talking, when the characters are in a new place, when a new event occurs that changes the scene, when a chunk of time has passed, and when there’s a major change in subject.

-I know it’s obvious, but... grammar, punctuation, and capitalization. They exist to make writing easy for readers to read, and more people will read your stuff if they don’t have to stop and try to figure out what you meant.

-Use tags and labels, as is possible with whatever site you’re using. Especially if you include possibly triggering content in your story. Again, I know it’s obvious, but it��s common courtesy. Bonus: tagging the themes and content of your story helps readers find it and read it :)

-If possible, limit the use of all-caps and exclamation marks / question marks. 99% of the time, one ! or one ? will do. If you overload the page with a lot of all-caps and long rows of exclamation marks or question marks, it hampers readability.

... That’s literally all I can think of. And, like I said, it’s all pretty basic stuff. You were probably rolling your eyes like, “Uh, yeah, Gwen, I know.” But that’s literally it. You can pretty much do whatever you want in fanfic.

That being said, here’s my advice for both fanfiction and original work...

_-_

4) A quick and dirty rule for coming up with a plot, starting a story, keeping up pacing, or maintaining tension: figure out what dreams, desires, and goals are nearest and dearest to your main character’s heart (see #16). Then set up the main conflict to be directly in opposition to that goal. It doesn’t have to be in a tangible way, though it could be. But, if your main character wants more than anything to reach the ships on the southern coast of your world and sail to a new life, make sure the main conflict immediately prevents them from doing that - in fact, make sure to send them north. If your main character just wants to keep their loved ones safe, kidnap the loved ones. If your main character just wants to date their best-friend-turned-crush, make sure they think they have no chance - or, make them cocky about it, and make sure it makes Person B determined not to ever like them. You get it. Figure out what your character most wants, and then keep them from having that. Boom - your conflict now ties in with your character's motivation. It's like instant yeast for plots.

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5) If you’re anything like me, you want your first draft to be Good, despite all that advice about how the first draft doesn’t have to be good and it’s just to get words on the page, yadda yadda. And if you’re somewhat of a perfectionist (like myself), it’s easy to get stuck looking at a blank page because you don’t have The Perfect Words, and you want what you write to be Good the first time.

Here’s how I cheat that:

Instead of trying to write a Good First Draft from a blank page, hit the enter key a few times, skip a little down on the page, change your ink to red (or blue, or whatever - just something immediately identifiable as Not Black) and just thought vomit. Write whatever the hell you’re thinking, exactly as you think it. Don’t worry about it being readable, don’t worry about narrative flow for now, don’t worry about covering all the details, don’t worry about anything except either a) getting all the details of your idea out onto the page, whether that’s a lot or whether it’s just a sentence or two, or b) if you don’t have an idea yet, finding your way there.

Because this method is also very good for finding your way to ideas when you’re stuck in writer’s block.

Because of how human brains work, getting this stuff out onto the page - in all its messy, stream-of-consciousness glory - will likely spark more thoughts. As you write your original idea about the scene, it’ll likely spark more ideas. Creation begets creation. If you just start thought-vomiting your ideas onto the page, chances are you’ll think of more things as you go, and you’ll start filling out description or dialogue or tone or action or whatever, and pretty soon the scene starts writing itself.

Not sure where you’re going with the scene or which ideas you wanna use? Use a lot of ambivalent language in your “thought-vomit draft.” My pre-writing notes are chock-full of the words “maybe,” “perhaps,” and the phrases, “At some point...” and “...or something like that.” In this way, I don’t tie myself down to one idea; it’s just an idea, and I’m keeping it on the page in case I use it, but I might chuck it in the trash or change it or whatever.

And then, once your ideas for the scene (or story, or chapter, or whatever) are on the page, then go back to the top and start translating them into a “real” first draft. Use black ink, and start copy-pasting chunks of the thought-vomit up into the top part of the document and translating them into Draft 1. Separate out paragraphs where paragraph breaks should be. Add the correct punctuation and whatnot. Change “describe the lobby here - include potted plants, fancy carpet, blood stain, etc.” into an actual description of the lobby. Flesh it out, or condense, or whatever it needs. And if you’re still stuck, change back to red ink and ramble some more until you find a path that feels right, then plug that in. This keeps you from looking at a blank page, and it allows you to generate a kind of Draft 0.5, somewhere between a plan and a first draft.

You don’t have to use every idea. Like I said, jot down whatever comes to mind, put a “maybe” before or after it, and keep working. If the idea grabs you and you wanna keep expanding on it and exploring it, cool. If you just wanna jot it down so you don’t forget it and then move on, also cool. Red-ink draft / “thought-vomit draft” is your time to jump around in the timeline, add or finesse details at whatever point your brain moves to, etc. Don’t try to do it exactly in story order, because you will get tangential thoughts and ideas, and you will not remember to write them down five pages later when you finally get to taking notes on that scene. Trust me. On that note...

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6) Write everything down the moment you think of it. Seriously.

“I’ll remember it when I get around to writing that scene in a couple days / weeks / months (/years).”

You won’t.

Write it down.

Phone, journal, google docs - hell, my family regularly laughs at me for grabbing a napkin during dinner and scribbling thoughts down alongside pasta sauce stains.

And then, once you have it written down somewhere...

_-_

7) Consolidate your writing ideas in one place.

Maybe this isn’t really your style, and that’s totally chill.

Buuuut, if you’re Type-A like me - or if you tend to be somewhat unorganized and you know you’ll lose track of your writing notes if they’re scattered across multiple notebooks, journals, napkins, phone notes, etc. - having one consolidated document of notes is a life saver. I keep mine on Google Docs so I can access it, add to it, and look through it for inspiration anywhere at any time. When I have one of those Shower Thoughts that I jot down on my phone or on a napkin during dinner, I set myself a reminder on my phone to type it up in my Story Ideas document later.

(Or, if the idea I had was for a story of mine that I’ve already started planning / drafting / whatever, I put it in the document for that story instead of the Big Random Story Ideas doc. You get it.)

_-_

8) Have other ways to collect and save writing ideas, besides just writing stuff down. If you like Pinterest, make pinterest boards of your characters or stories or settings or whatever. If you’re big into playlists, make a playlist for your character / setting / story / etc. Or both. Or something else. I’m not good at drawing, but maybe you are, and maybe you like to draw your ideas. Whatever form it takes, having another way to save ideas and think about your stories is invaluable.

_-_

9) Some writers can just start writing with no idea where the story is going, and they just kind of figure it out as they go. I envy those writers. And I do that sometimes for fanfiction, where the stakes are somewhat lower and the audience is reading more for scene-to-scene enjoyment (and to see their OTP kiss) than for a Driving And Compelling Narrative.

But here’s the thing: especially if you’re just kind of starting out, writing without some sort of plan is really, really hard, and will likely lead you into a slow, meandering narrative that will likely frustrate you.

Even if you think you’re someone that just can’t write with a plan (and again, I have the highest respect for pansters out there - I don’t know how you do it, you crazy bastards, but you keep doing you) - even if you think “I can’t work with plans, they’re too prescriptive, I just want to write and see what happens -”

Try at least making the most skeletal of plans.

Even if you have no clue what 90% of the story is, yet. That’s fine. But you need to have some idea of what you’re building to, even if that’s nothing more specific than a feeling, or a turning point for your character. Even if your entire plan for everything beyond Chapter 1 is, “At some point, Charlie needs to realize that Ed was lying to her.”

This is where those Draft 0.5 notes come in handy. Because, more than likely, working on your current scene that way will spark ideas for later scenes, which you can put down at the bottom of the document and save for when they become relevant. In my experience, the line between planning ahead and making a Draft 0.5 is exceptionally thin. One can quickly turn into the other.

If you’re really, really resistant to the idea of planning ahead, that’s okay. It’s not everybody’s style. But for the love of all that is holy, write down your ideas for future scenes, even if you’re a person that doesn’t like to plan and writes only in story order, because you will not remember that idea once you get to that scene.

_-_

10) You don’t have to write in order.

Here’s the thing: I’m a person that can only do my Draft 1 in story order (meaning, chronological order). I just have to be in that flow; I need to write in story order for me to best channel where the character is at from scene to scene, both narratively and emotionally.

But my Thought Vomit Draft is another thing entirely. By using the brain hack of putting my notes in red (or another color, it doesn’t matter) and going down to the bottom of the document / page and taking notes there, and then integrating them into whatever plan I have, and then translating them into Draft 1 once I get there in the story - by doing that, I can get my good ideas onto the page (and expound upon them and let my muse carry me and ride that momentum while I’m in the moment of inspiration) without writing out of order.

Maybe that’s just me. But if you’re a person who really prefers to write in story order, that could be hugely helpful to you. It is to me.

_-_

11) Emotion and motivation will do more for your story than technicalities of plot.

If your characters really care about something, and their journey through the (shaky or weak) plot is emotionally engaging, it will be a much more compelling story than a story with a “perfect” plot and unrelatable or unmotivated characters.

If your characters care about what they’re doing, and it means something to them, and their goals and actions are driven by dreams or fears or emotions that are integral to who they are, your audience will care too. If you have a perfectly crafted plot that hits all the right beats and has high stakes and fast pacing and drama - but your characters don’t connect with what’s happening in a way that’s deeply meaningful or emotional for them? You’re gonna have a hard time engaging readers.

When in doubt, prioritize character emotion and motivation over plot. Emotion is what drives story.

This power is highly exploitable. (Just look at pulp novels and shitty but entertaining movies.) You can even use it to glaze over plot holes or reinvigorate a limp narrative. Use it that way sparingly, though. It’s a band-aid, not a surgery.

_-_

12) Evil villains are hard to write - mostly because there are very few truly evil people in the world. (There are a few. Billionaires and several big name politicians come to mind.) But by and large, there aren’t that many evil people. There are plenty of bad people, but bad people have some good in them, somewhere in there. Trying to write an evil villain is hard, because they often turn very cartoony.

Here’s a tip: it’s much easier to write antagonists who aren’t evil. Even if they’re bad people. Of course, there’s no reason you can’t write a villain that’s just truly evil - a serial killer, or an abuser, or a billionaire, or someone who legit just wants to hurt people or blow up the earth or stay in control of an oppressed population, or whatever. But chances are, it’s gonna be really hard to make them feel real, and even harder to create a plot around them that doesn’t feel forced or contrived.

Instead, try writing an antagonist / villain whose motivations and goals directly clash with your protagonist’s - but not because they want to take over the world or see people suffer. Write an antagonist who’s chaotic good, but whose perception of the situation is completely opposite from your hero’s. Write an antagonist whose only desire is to save people, and who will do anything to achieve that goal - anything. Write an antagonist who believes in the letter of the law, and will hinder and oppose the hero’s methods even if they agree with the hero’s motivation. Write an antagonist who got in way over their head and did some things they regret, and now they don’t know how to get out, and they’re doing their best but whatever they set in motion is too powerful for them to stop now.

Write villains who are human. Write a killer who thought they were doing the right thing by taking their victim out of the equation, who vomits at the sight of the body and sobs over the grave they dig. Write a government leader who truly believes she’s doing what’s best for her people in the long-term, even if it might hurt them in the short term, and is willing to endure the hatred and belligerence of the masses if it means securing what she thinks is a better future for her people. Write a teenage bully that thinks they’re the one being picked on by the world, and they’re just fighting back, standing their ground. Write a scientist who will break any code of ethics and hurt anyone he needs to - in order to bring back his baby sister from the grave, because he promised her he’d protect her and he failed. Write an antagonist who is selfish and self-centered and capricious - because in order to survive they had to look out for Number One, and that habit ain’t about to break anytime soon.

Write villains who aren’t even villains. Write antagonists who oppose the hero because of moral differences. Write antagonists who are trying to do the right thing. Write antagonists who treat the heroes with kindness and dignity and respect and gentleness.

They don’t have to be good. They don’t have to be Misunderstood Sweethearts who “deserve” a redemption arc. They can be cruel and nasty and dismissive and callous and violent and etc. etc.

Just hesitate before you make them Evil-with-a-capital-E. Because evil is hard to write, and honestly, boring to read. Flawed human beings with goals and motivations that directly oppose the main characters’ are much easier to write and much more interesting to read.

Ask why. Why is your villain trying to take over the world? What does that even mean? Are they trying to create a Star-Trek-like post-capitalism utopia, but they know that won’t happen in a million lifetimes, so they’re trying to do it by force? Are they actually super in favor of human rights, but they got very impatient waiting for the world to do anything about poverty and war, so they decided to take it into their own hands? Are they determined to fix the world - no matter the cost? Are they terrified and overwhelmed, but committed to see it through to the end? Or - maybe they’re just doing it on a dare. Maybe they don’t really give a shit about world domination, they were just a mediocre rich white guy who decided to fuck around and find out, and now he’s kind of curious how far he can take this thing. And now he’s kind of an internationally-wanted criminal, so he’s kind of stuck living on his hidden private island in his multi-billion dollar secret base, strapping lasers to sharks’ heads for the hell of it. Gross, selfish, uncaring, and dangerous? For sure. Evil? Depends on your definition. See, now we’re getting somewhere.

_-_

13) It’s tempting to let the plot control the characters. It’s easy to drop your characters into a situation and see how they react. But here’s the thing: that doesn’t drive plot. In fact, it bogs down pacing. Instead, try to build you plot off of your characters’ actions and decisions. Let your character build their own situation. Not to say it should go they way they wanted it to go; in fact, usually, their grand plans should go to hell very quickly. But having the characters take action and make decisions, and letting the plot develop based on that, is much easier to make compelling than making a rigid series of events and then trying to herd your characters into them.

_-_

14) Having trouble justifying a character’s actions? Consider having them make the opposite decision, or having them approach the situation in a different way. For example: you need your character to go meet the bad guy, for plot reasons, even though there’s no way it’s not a trap. If the character goes, readers are gonna be groaning with their head in their hands, because c’mon man, that was really fucking stupid. But he’s gotta go, because the plot needs that. Two ways you might handle this: a) He knows it’s probably a trap. He decides not to go. The plot conspires to get him near the villain anyway. Or, b) He knows it’s a trap. But he needs to go, for (insert reasons here). So, he approaches it in an unexpected way. He brings backup, recruiting a side character we met earlier in the story. Or he arrives on the back of a dragon, because ain’t nobody gonna fuck with a dude on a dragon. Or he goes - early, and ambushes the villain. It may work, it may not. He may get himself kidnapped anyway. But it moves the plot along without having Stupid Hero Syndrome.

_-_

15) This is a legit piece of advice: if all of this sounds overwhelming, literally just ignore it and write what you want. For real. Writing should be fun, and every single writer operates differently. If you’re sitting here like “I’m getting stressed just reading this,” just flip me a good-natured bird and get on with your life. I promise I won’t take it personally. Same goes for literally any other writing advice you see. Lots of rules and guidelines can very quickly make anything thoroughly un-fun. Just write. If you’re passionate about it and you do it for long enough, you’ll start figuring out the tips and tricks on your own.

_-_

16) Here’s the best piece of advice I can give you: know your characters. More importantly, know what’s important to them. Build their personality and decisions off of that, and build your plot off of their decisions.

I see a lot of character building sheets that ask a shit-ton of questions like “What’s their most prized possession?” “Do they like their family?” “What’s their favorite food?”

And while these are good questions, my problem with this type of character building is that if you start there, with the little stuff, you’re building on nothing. IMO, to make a truly strong character (not strong like Inner Strength, strong like effective), you need a strong foundation.

Here are the things you must know about your character:

a) What are their greatest fears / deepest insecurities? And I don’t mean “wasps” or “heights.” I mean the deep shit. I mean fears like “living a meaningless life,” or “turning out just like their parents,” or “that no one will ever love them,” or “being powerless.” You may say, “But they’re really scared of wasps! They fall into a wasp nest when they were little and got stung so much they almost died!” Great! That’s a fantastic bit of backstory. They should absolutely be afraid of wasps, and that should absolutely be an impediment later in the story. But dig deeper. What about that event actually scarred them? Was it the helplessness? Stumbling around, swatting at the air, not being able to do a single thing to stop what was happening to them? Was it that they were alone, and no matter how loud they screamed, no one was coming? Was it the bodily horror of feeling themself turn into an inhuman creature as they swelled up from the stings, unable to move their fingers or face normally anymore?

And don’t forget insecurities, because those factor in, too. Are they deeply insecure about their identity? Do they believe, deep down, that they’re ugly? Did they grow up poor and they’ve always been really touchy about that? Why? Dig deep. Figure out what really, really bothers them.

b) What are their hopes and dreams? What do they truly want out of life? What do they consider the most valuable to their experience here in this thing called life? Is it the freedom to forge their own path and be independent? Is it the approval of their family or peers? Is it a home? Is it knowledge, or understanding? Spiritual fulfillment? Is it deeply important to them that they contribute to their community, or protect those they love? What do they need in order to feel truly and deeply fulfilled in life?

Figure out those two things (each one encompasses several things, btw, you don’t have to stop at just one for each), and then use that to inform how they behave and the types of decisions they make within the story.

It also informs character behavior and personality.

Let’s say we have a character who’s afraid of helplessness. They’re probably gonna be the person that always wants to do something, try something, no matter how hopeless the situation seems. They’d despise just sitting and waiting, probably, because it makes them feel powerless. They might even be the person that makes rash decisions and acts impulsively and puts themself in danger unnecessarily, because in their mind it’s better than being at the mercy of fate. This is one way you could use a character’s personality to inform their decisions, which in turn helps to inform plot.

Or, let’s say we have a character whose greatest fear is being left behind or forgotten. We may have a chatterbox on our hands. They might be obnoxious. They might love the spotlight, constantly vying for attention no matter the situation, because deep down they’re so afraid that they’d be forgotten otherwise. Or, it may go the opposite way. They may be so afraid of people leaving them that they’re terrified of bothering people. They don’t want to do anything that could annoy people, anything that might give people a reason to leave them. They might be exceedingly polite, quiet, accommodating. A push-over, really.

These are two nearly opposite types of personalities, both stemming from the same core fear/insecurity. You can go a lot of different ways with it. But if you build on that strong foundation, you’ll have a strong character, and a stronger plot.

Likewise, the structure of your story can and should inform the design of these character traits. If you need your characters to team up near the end, it may be impactful if you give your main character a deep fear of commitment, an insecurity about being unwanted or left behind, and make them highly value independence and freedom. That could make their team-up for the final battle very meaningful. Conversely, you can use your character’s deepest fears and desires to help design the plot. Is your character deeply insecure about voicing their opinions or taking a stand, because of trauma they faced in the past? Make them face that. Build that into the climactic third act. Give them the big inspirational speech where they stand up and talk about what they believe to be important, what they think the group should do. And then design that character arc to run through the story, giving you more handholds and stepping stones, more pieces of foundation on which to design the plot.

In this way, character should inform story as much as story informs character. It’s a feedback loop.

Bonus: if you build your character and your plot off of each other in this way, it automatically starts to build in the foundations of that emotional investment I mentioned earlier. If your character’s decisions are based on what they most want and do not want in life, you basically have your character motivation and stakes pre-built.

Note: you need to know these things about your villain, too.

-_-_-

I’m genuinely sorry about the length of this, lmao. But you did ask.

Best of luck!

Edit: I forgot an important one:

17) Start when the scene starts and end when the scene ends.

What do I mean by that?

If your notes say “Danny asks Nicole out after school and majorly flubs it,” start the scene when Danny approaches Nicole after school. Better yet, cold-open the scene on “I was wondering if, you know, you’d wanna. You know. Hang out some time?”

Don’t start that morning when Danny goes to school, unless you’re gonna cover the school day in like one or two sentences. Don’t spend whole paragraphs going through the school day, unless it’s to cover other plot points first (in which case apply these same guidelines there), or if the paragraphs are there for a specific reason, like to illustrate how stressed he is and how it seems like every little thing is going wrong. Even then, trim the fat as much as possible. Expounding and describing everything Moment-to-moment is for the meat of the scenes, not the leading-up-to and coming-away-from.

Here’s my rule of thumb: study how and when movies cut from scene to scene. Movies have exceptionally strict, limited time for storytelling; they’re excellent examples of starting a scene when the plot point starts and ending when it’s over. If you can’t picture a movie showing everything you showed, start the scene later and end it earlier.

#asks #anon #writing advice #writing tips #writing #fanfic writing #fanfiction #character creation #plot development #character development #my advice #original writing

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jschllatt · 3 years

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𝐍𝐀𝐓'𝐒 𝟏𝐊 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓

hi my loves! today i hit 1,000 followers and i could not be happier! every milestone i reach makes me more and more appreciative of all of the wonderful people i’ve met through this blog. i just wanted to thank all of my amazing mutuals for being here for me, i’m grateful for you more than you know. so, as a celebration of this milestone and a way to recognize my talented mutuals, i decided to create a writing event! below is a list of prompts to choose from.

the rules are as follows:

anyone can participate!

three people per prompt

you can pick as many prompts as you like!

you can write for whichever mcyt you want (character, cc)

fics can be romantic or platonic (platonic only for minors, of course)

send me an ask with your character/cc & prompt number and i’ll add you to the list!

there’s absolutely no deadline! i want this event to be enjoyable for everyone, so don’t feel too pressured to get your fic done - have fun with it!! <33

be sure to tag me in the fic so i can see it!

feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions at all!

without further ado, here are the prompts:

(fluff, found some of these prompts from these links 1, 2,)

1. “i’m not going to stop poking you until i get your attention.”

⤷ @mcyt-sh1t with cc!quackity

2. “you’re so cute when you’re half asleep like this.”

⤷ @mcyt-sh1t with cc!dream - here

3. “let’s just stay in bed.”

⤷ @ohworm-writes with wilbur - let’s just stay in bed ⤷ @heyskeppy with cc!dream

4. “i can’t believe you’re actually wearing my clothes.”

⤷ @glattandblade with c!bbh - dress shirt

5. “can you stop playing connect the dots with my freckles?”

⤷ @sunniewrites with cc!dream - connect the dots

⤷ @orionfromabove with slimecicle - here

6. “you snuck in my room at 4am to cuddle?”

⤷ @soraahq with cc!quackity

⤷ @dawnfallx with cc!ranboo - use the door next time

7. “it’s nice that your voice was the first thing i heard today.”

⤷ @oh-mcyt with wilbur- first thing

⤷ @sexsellz with schlatt

8. “wait, don’t pull away...not yet.”

⤷ @orionfromabove with slimecicle - here

⤷ @glattandblade with c!techno

9. “you can call me whenever you want, even if you don’t have a reason to.”

⤷ @gr33kp3rs3us with cc!dream - help

⤷ @brownz-suga with quackity - call me

10. “rumor has it, i make you nervous.”

⤷ @libbynotfound with cc!quackity

⤷ @sabinanotfound with cc!dream - rumor has it

11. “somehow, i always seem to end up here with you.”

⤷ @beepbopbee with wilbur - our special place

12. “i’m only doing it because you’re cute.”

13. “you can sleep, i’ll keep you safe.”

⤷ @fromthebrainofachaoticwriter with fundy - here

14. “i’ve never felt so strongly about someone before, i’m terrified.”

⤷ 🚼 anon with schlatt

⤷ @orionfromabove with slimecicle - here

⤷ @chubbity with cc!quackity - here

15. “i can’t stop thinking about you.”

⤷ @bozowrites with cc!dream

16. “just say the words and i’m yours.”

17. “don’t smile at me like that, you know it drives me crazy.”

18. “will you just hold me?”

19. “it was a joke, i swear.”

20. “we should run away.”

⤷ @im-an-ungodly-mess with wilbur

(angst, found some of these prompts from this link 1)

1. “i don’t even know who you are anymore.”

2. “i can’t be with you.”

3. “you shouldn’t be here.”

4. “can you kiss me? just one last time, that’s all i ask.”

⤷ @glattandblade with c!sam - goodbyes

5. “am i too late?”

⤷ @fromthebrainofachaoticwriter with wilbur

6. “i don’t want to hear your excuses anymore.”

7. “yeah, i remember the drill.”

⤷ @krabmeat with bench trio - i remembered the drill

8. “i don’t want to say goodbye.”

⤷ @galaxygnf with c!dream - let him go

⤷ @dyslexicbur with wilbur - not good at goodbyes

�� @lorefulll with c!beeduo - i don’t want to say goodbye

9. “you’re either with me or against me.”

⤷ @sunniewrites with c!wilbur

⤷ @dreamwvrld with c!techno

⤷ @soraahq with c!jack manifold

10. “i’m done trying for you.”

11. “go ahead and leave like you always do.”

⤷ @dyslexicbur with wilbur - leave before you love me

12. “let me go, i can still save them!”

⤷ @orionfromabove with slimecicle - here

13. “i’m not going to sit here and watch you destroy yourself.”

⤷ @your-imxgination with c!dream

14. “you left me behind to die!”

⤷ @your-imxgination with c!dream

15. “i knew i was wrong to believe you.”

⤷ @soraahq with c!sam - mistakes

16. “why can’t you just look at me?”

17. “i can’t bear to look at you any longer.”

18. “it doesn’t have to end, not like this.”

⤷ @dyslexicbur with wilbur

⤷ @soraahq with karl

19. “why won’t you listen to me?”

20. “i wish we never met.”

#jschllatt's 1k event #nat's 1k event

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potteresque-ire · 3 years

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I’ve got several asks about BJYX supertopic’s recent battle for the top CP ranking. I’ve meant to answer them the way they’re asked, but the answer gets long. Dear Anons ~ please forgive me for splitting the answers into multiple posts!

As with everything I’ve said about CPs, they’re mostly my limited observations—unlike history and news, it’s impossible to find articles about any of this that pass journalistic standards. Therefore, please consider the following to be my personal impressions and ramblings, and as usual, everyone please feel free to point out mistakes and add your own thoughts!

Everyone probably knows already, but the new drama that has brought waves to the Weibo’s CP ranking list is Word of Honour (山河令, which I will abbreviate to WoH), and the CP pairing is known as Lang Lang Ding (浪浪釘, LLD). I haven’t watched this drama yet but as a Wuxia (and slash) fan, it is on my to-watch list. Nonetheless, I’ve been watching the developments surrounding the popularity of the drama and the CPs, and I think I can make the posts long enough just with these observations alone. (I’m incredibly long winded :D )

For the CP competition, I think it’s important to point this out: the LLD supertopic is a mixed character-CP and real-person-CP supertopic, unlike the YiZhan supertopics (BJYX, ZSWW, LSFY) that are real-person-CP only. This means comparing LLD and the YiZhan supertopics is really … comparing apples and oranges, especially when WoH is still airing (and therefore providing fresh candies for the character CP with every new episode). I therefore wish this kind of popularity competition doesn’t take root in the international fandom; it’s … a bit silly to me, really. It makes little sense.

That said, however, I understand why c-turtles are fighting so hard for the #1 CP spot. C-ent (as is true with many other aspects in the country), numbers and ranking are everything. That 20(?), 40(?) minutes during which BJYX supertopic fell to #2 the first time already made “news” headlines that claimed that WoH had surpassed The Untamed (TU)—an even stranger comparison, if one thinks about it. BJYX, technically speaking, doesn’t have anything to do with TU. It’s a GG/DD real person CP.

But it doesn’t matter—numbers are numbers, and they talk to c-ent watchers, the commercial interests looking for their most promising future investments. The perceived power of c-turtles hinges on them and by power, I mean both fan power and spending power, which are almost synonymous terms in c-ent. Many of you have probably seen those charts that rank the popularity of c-ent entertainers by how much goods, in monetary value, they’re able to sell. How much do the c-turtles contribute to these monetary values? Are they, as a collection of fans, worth keeping, worth wooing?

The notion that only the fan’s spending power means something may cause unease in many i-turtles—and it is, indeed, a very cold-hearted assessment, as it implies that fans are little more than living wallets to be emptied. My observations have been that such a notion doesn’t bother c-turtles for the most part and, IMHO, they’re being realistic for their sociopolitical environment. They also respond to this notion accordingly—while it is difficult to tease out the exact percentage of turtles among Gg and Dd’s active fans (fans that make major purchases goods and merchandises), c-turtles have previously demonstrated their ability to contribute a substantial fraction (in the 10s of percent) of money spent on Gg and Dd. As these splits are only very occasionally visible to the public, the CP ranking likely serves as a constant reminder of c-turtles enormous fan/spending power — without which, Gg and Dd’s popularity will also take a hit.

In that sense, c-turtles are fighting for their right-to-exist. Remember when I talked about the “traditional” thinking that CPFs < solos, and that one CPF = one (loyal) solo lost? This means c-turtles must be able to demonstrate their ability to offer something that the solos cannot, and more importantly, that their offer will not come in any other name. If c-turtles proved last year that they wouldn’t change their name to solos, then this year they’re set to prove they’ll not change their name to LLDs or other CPFs.

If the latter sounds a bit like a battlecry, it may be exactly that. Ever since the announcements of the long line of upcoming Dangai’s, ample inflammatory posts have been made on the platform to get c-turtles to “defect” to the new dramas, or predict that as soon as another pair of random, beautiful men start to throw candies on screen, c-turtles will promptly forget about Gg and Dd and join the fun. The latter, especially, can be quite insulting to read, as one can imagine. However, with c-turtles being a loosely connected group of millions, despite their apparent firm stance that they shall stay turtle, their underlying nerves that these “insults” may turn out to be true can also be felt — the worry that c-turtledom will haemorrhage when the next popular Dangai with enticing M/M CPs (character or real person) come along.

WoH, as the first drama that fits the criteria, is therefore a test— a test that many c-turtles likely view they must pass with flying colours to prove their point, to stand with their heads held high among those who do not care about BJYXSZD (not necessarily solos—many solos, BTW, have actually helped the turtles out this time); to show that turtles are not only every bit as loyal as other Gg and Dd fans, they’re not so … cheap as to take any random “industrial saccharine” (工業糖精; referring to ZQSG-free candies created solely to lure in fans) and walk away.

The reform of the BJYX supertopic (which now allows candy analysis and explains the sudden appearance of many old candies), the flood of BTS videos from almost every Zhan Jie previously involved with the YiZhan CPs, the temporary retaking of the top 3 CP spots by BJYX+ZSWW+LSFY ... can therefore be viewed as a rally of c-turtles. The message is: we’re not going anywhere. We’ve got enough candies that no other (M/M) CPs can hope to match in quantity, in quality.

(And the parade is indeed impressive.) (The reform also didn’t come out of thin air; there have been discussions about the supertopic’s candy sharing rules before.)

Some c-turtles have rightfully been concerned about how such a parade of candies can affect Gg and Dd. They point out that some candies should still remain 閱後即焚 (“burn after reading”, instant return to hiding after release like certain BTS videos); that at some point, c-turtles have to let go of their obsession of staying on top of the CP rankings. TU is already almost 2 years old, and being a little lower on the CP ranking list will take the heat off the YiZhan fandoms in the long run, incite less outside forces trying to fan the flames between the shrimps and the motors and the turtles.

The rules and guidelines of c-turtledom therefore remain a work in progress, and c-turtles, the millions of them, are still learning as they go.

Personally, I have faith in what will come. I also haven’t been too concerned about the candy parade, because most information is already out there for those who’re determined to find them — on Bilibili, Douyin, Zhihu etc. I spent some time talking about the Gg Assistant fic not with the goal of eliciting pain or panic, but rather, as a demonstration of why it has been the tradition of CPFs—not only the turtles—to play things very cautiously, with 閱後即焚 and 圈地自萌 (“to play within the circle”; ie, keep all information and candies within CPFs) being the default rules even after removing the “queer factor” from the discussion. Real person CPs have fate as one of their writers and so, unlike character CPs, their candies can have unintended, unpredictable consequences. As the YiZhan fandoms have now grown big enough that their candies can no longer be realistically well-contained, it may not be such a bad idea for especially the sensitive candies to return under the “jurisdiction” of the BJYX supertopic, so to speak. c-turtles can then gain better control of their comes-and-goes. Their narratives.

(CPN below.)

About narratives. @rainbowsky have previously written a thoughtful piece on the possible reasons the YiZhan fandoms have been allowed to thrive, and I’d like to add the following hypothesis—it may be a way to take pre-emptive control of the Gg/Dd narrative in preparation for the scenario where their relationship is exposed without their consent. Some i-turtles, I think, may have already gained a sense of how ruthless, cruel and above all, quick the c-ent rumour mill can be. If Gg and Dd get outed by a third party, chances are they won’t have time at all to create a fresh narrative, and the one that come out of the rumour mill will likely be … very ugly, containing every worst misconception people have against homosexual relationships. Whereas now, c-turtles already have a narrative at hand—the canon-fanon that, while c-turtles may not agree on every detail, is largely agreed upon on the important milestones. The supporting materials are also ready: the videos, the images, the voice and arrow guides on them.

For me, another interesting question is whether this c-turtle rally and parade of candies are truly necessary in the end.

I’m curious about what will happen to the LLD supertopic when WoH completes its airing. There’s really no precedence for this kind of a mixed character + real person M/M CP supertopic setup — the history of Dangai is short, of popular Dangai’s, even shorter.

Guardian (鎮魂), the first successful Dangai aired exactly a year before TU (in the summer of 2018), never had a dedicated CP supertopic (please holler if I got this wrong! I know there’re Guardian fans here ~ hello! *waves*). Discussions of Guardian’s CPs were found within the drama’s supertopic (剧版镇魂); the real-person-CP also never had its own name; its discussions were hidden under the character CP (巍瀾) tag.

Then came TU. Its real person CP (BJYX) split away from its character CP (WangXian) long before the airing for the drama—the birthdate of the BJYX supertopic was 2018/04/28 (TU’s airing date: 2019/06/27).

After TU, two Dangai dramas have already aired before WoH that seemed to have largely passed the attention of i-fandom: The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty (成化十四年) and Winter Begonia (鬢邊不是海棠紅). Winter Begonia, in particular, was well received. Their character CPs never really took off, however, being conceived and perceived as more brotherhood than romance. Age also played a factor for Winter Begonia—Yun Zheng (尹正), known to many turtles as Dd’s motorcycle buddy, is 34, and Huang Xiaoming (黃曉明) is 43. The associated real person CPs also never became popular as a result; Huang Xiaoming’s famous marriage to a beautiful actress also meant that a real person CP was likely to be off the table for Winter Begonia from the start.

The best reference I can think of then, when it comes to speculating the fate of LLD, is therefore the fates of the CP supertopics of 2020’s summer hit, Love and Redemption (琉璃). I’ve talked about its character CP before; essentially, just days after the drama was done airing, the (het) character CP (初遇夫婦) was broken up and in a manner largely criticised as unnecessarily cruel to CP fans. Its supertopic closed immediately afterwards. The supertopic for the real-person-CP (冰橙汁) got to live, however, and is still active today.

The commercial forces behind WoH will likely break the character CP as soon as the drama is done airing; popular het and non-het character CPs in the recent years have gone through similar fates. What does this mean to LLD then? Does it mean the supertopic will be shutdown, since the drama itself already has its own supertopic? But what will happen then to its real-person CP, which has been incorporated within the LLD supertopic? Will the real-person CP be broken at the same time as the character CP to allow for immediate “purification” of real person CP fans into solo fans, to avoid future “headaches” like BYYX—a bound between the actors that cannot be severed—or 227 that, in the eyes of many passerbys, remains an issue of solo vs cpfs?

Only time will tell, and I very sincerely hope it’ll get a happy ending. Fans are made to love, and it saddens me every time to see them being severed from their loves, or pitted against each other especially when it’s clear it’s the social media platforms, the commercial interests behind the scenes — not just the production/media companies but the YXHs, the water armies — who will reap the benefits in the end. Personally, I feel no joy in seeing anyone’s favourites getting torn down, even if they aren’t my own. Gg and Dd’s safety — and the safety of every upstanding, hardworking c-ent entertainer like them — doesn’t hinge so much on their CP or solo or drama ranking, but whether their fans can refrain from bringing their conflicts into the public eye, from “occupying social resources”—ie, deflecting the public’s attention from the “core socialist values” the government intends it to focus on.

Fandom is big enough for us all.

#pie metas #yizhan #bjyx

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crescentsteel · 3 years

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Keeping a Secret - Prologue

plot: ehehe lemme leave this blank for now as this is only a prologue genre: fluff, crack, slow burn, eventual smut, sexual tension, angst at some point wc: 2.7k

[a/n]

I am reeling just from finishing this one because Tsukki is my boy (Kuroo ily too i swear)

Who writes 2.7k words of prologue? lol me

I’ll set up the masterlist when I’m done with the 1st Chapter.

Thank you so much @oii-sugasan and @haikyuu-is-for-lovers for the betaread! :)

Let me know if you wanna be tagged

Chapter 1 || masterlist

You aren’t just annoying. You’re a fucking menace. Every time he goes to the gym, your presence is like a plague. You're just a manager, but sometimes he thinks that you think you’re the assistant coach. There’s nothing he’d love more than to shower you with the nastiest, most off-handed comments, just to shut you up and wipe the cheery grin that taunts him every time he sees you.

Seriously, you’re all over the place -- you talk to all members of the team as if you’re a player yourself, you nag everyone to take care of themselves outside training like you’re their older sister, you hand out self-gathered information on upcoming matches as soon as matchups are announced, you scamper around the gym tossing balls, assembling the net, doing whatever the hell you can get your hands on, all the while wearing those stupid shorts that distract the majority of the team, especially the new members.

As his eyes follow you, you suddenly turn around to face him, breaking him from his reverie. Even when you’re halfway across the gymnasium, he can see the sharp playfulness that you always exude whenever you talk to him.

“Tsukishima!” You wave at him with that disgustingly sweet grin. “If you’re done staring at my sexy back, you can start your blocking drills, okay?!” you shout with a voice loud enough for everyone else in the gym to hear. Tsukishima feels multiple sets of eyes glance towards his direction and he ‘tsks’ in annoyance under his breath.

He immediately walks away. He refuses to hear more of the unnecessary and untrue prattles directed at him by you.

He hears footsteps follow him. Judging from its pace and heavy strides, he already knows its Kogane without even looking

“Oi, Tsukki. Do you like our manager?”

He doesn’t understand why Kogane is whispering when you’re half a court away from them. More than that, he doesn’t understand why Kogane assumes he likes you. For one, you were wrong: he wasn’t even staring at you. He was staring randomly at nothing while thinking about how irritating you are and you just happened to be at his line of sight.

“I don’t see anything to like about her,” he replies passively.

“What? Why? She’s super helpful -- and pretty too.” Kogane, just like the rest of the team, believes so. Even Kyoutani is fond of you because of that one time you received his spike on full force. You rolled on your back from the sheer power of it but you were able to receive it perfectly, making the whole team go wild when you did, with him as the only exception as he found it inane.

“If you think so, go confess or something then.”

“You know we can’t!” Pink stains begin to surface on his teammate’s cheeks, obviously infatuated with you. Then again, this is not new to him. It was a basic reaction from anyone whose dick is more functional than their brain. Maybe it’s because you’re the only female so close to everyone else. Honestly, he really doesn’t know. But one thing’s for sure. Kogane has 0 chances with you, and neither does every player of Sendai Frogs.

He remembers the conceitedness you displayed even in your first year as a manager. You two became part of the team almost at the same time. He was two months in when the former manager introduced you to the team. As she finished introducing you, you whispered to her to add something. It went something like ‘oh, umm. y/n-chan also said that no one from the team can’t date her.’ Even the former manager looked at you weirdly but you were just there beaming as you bowed to everybody.

They thought it was a joke, but when you became a full-pledged manager in less than six months, you announced it yourself.

‘I know I’m kind of cute, but I won’t ever consider dating anyone from the team. Okay?’

You announce it with a sickening smile every time there are new members, reminding everyone else that you’re untouchable.

It’s fucking atrocious, to him at least. Unlike the other players from his team, he’s not shallow enough to fancy you just because you’re not disgusting to look at, or that you did your managerial duties so exceedingly well.

He grits his teeth. He hates it. How can someone so chaotic as you be so effective in managing the team. What grinds him even more is that you go to the same university he does, and even there, your presence stinks. He once had a class with you only to find out that you’re not as dumb as you make yourself out to be.

It’s infuriating. He can’t wait for the day you mess up -- only then would he finally get the chance to diss you. He’ll turn that shit-eating smile of yours upside down.

Man, nothing boosts your mood better than bugging Tsukishima. When you felt his sinister stare boring at your back earlier, you just couldn’t waste the opportunity to say something about it. He just ignored you, but the scowl on his face was enough response to satisfy you.

The truth is, you have nothing against Tsukishima. Yeah, he has a sharp tongue and a vile attitude, but hey, he’s a good team player. He doesn’t speak much, but he gets shit done in matches. Despite his foul personality, he’s actually manageable: he listens to you and he rarely shows up late. He’s not particularly motivating to look at, but he still does what’s asked of him. For some reason that you don’t know, he still hasn’t spat out his usual, rancid remarks towards you. You know he’s itching to, and honestly, you’re kind of curious of what he’ll throw your way.

Still, for the last three years he kept his mouth shut even though he looks at you like you’re the most unpleasant being he’s ever laid eyes on.

“Y/n!”

You jog towards the team coach, Coach Mira. “Yes, Coach?”

“Do you like Tsukishima?” she asks curiously. The question is funny to you but you hold back the laughter and smile instead.

You like Coach Mira a lot. She’s more like an older sister than a coach to you. You’re free to share a few laughs with her, and she values your input to the team. Maybe it’s because you’re both women drowned in a sea of male athletes that you sort of have that innate connection.

“No, Coach. Why?”

“Cause you pay attention to him the most.”

“I don’t see what’s to like about him,” you veer your gaze towards his direction, watching his scowling face as he walks away, Koganegawa following closely behind him. You can’t hear them, but the sight is already amusing as it is. “I just like putting him in place whenever he’s being extra nasty,” you add.

“If you say so, y/n. Honestly, I don’t really care if you go out with one of them.”

You wave your hand back and forth like you’re swatting a fly. “No way, Coach. They’re like little boys I’m taking care of.”

She sweeps her gaze behind you, scanning all the players present in the court. “Can’t say they feel the same way though.” Then she looks at the same person you’re looking at. “Well, maybe except for Tsukishima.”

“That’s why I like messing around with him the most,” you admit with mirth as you watch Tsukishima get away from Kogane.

Everyone in the gymnasium is staring as they enter the arena. If there’s one thing opposing teams remember about the Sendai Frogs, it’s their female tandem of a stone-cold coach and a ‘hot,’ bubbly manager who walk side by side in front of the whole team, not the players.

It’s not really an issue for Tsukishima. He doesn’t really care. Shimizu had the same reputation back in high school. But you? You’re not Shimizu. You aren’t even close.

And you, being the chaotic mess that you are, you milked the attention. Whenever someone blatantly gapes at you, you’d wave at them. You’d even entertain those who openly flirted with you. In retrospect, he should find it despicable. Rather finds it entertaining. So does the rest of the team.

When the Sendai Frogs reach their spot, a guy wearing a Tamaden Elephants jersey approaches you shamelessly. A brave (maybe a little bit foolish) act, considering you’re with the whole team.

“Hi!”

You turn around and greet him just as enthusiastically, maybe even more.

“I just want to say, great game from last season, he says as he scratches the back of his head.

Liar.

If the guy really wants to acknowledge the team’s play from last season, he’d approach one of the players. He also wouldn’t have that stupid blush on his awe-struck face.

“Thank you! Great game indeed,” you return the compliment.

As soon as the guy starts fidgeting, Tsukishima can already guess what comes next: it’s either a date or your number.

“If you don’t mind, can I get your number?”

Tsukishima sneers at how predictable the scene is, and he can’t wait to see what comes next.

You beam at the guy. “Sure! It’s number 1.”

He still smiles even though he’s obviously dumb-founded. “Sorry, what?”

“My number, right? It’s 1. Cause we’re number 1 in the district,” You say with that fake innocence that isn’t really fooling anyone.

“...Uhh.”

“Go Sendai Frogs!” You cheer out of the blue and as if an automated response, the rest of the team, even Tsukishima (though lifelessly), answers.

“Sendai Frogs fight!”

The loud baritone of deep male voices drew the attention of other people in the area, brightening your face up even more as you focus on the guy in front of you again. He looks scandalized by what just happened.

“How about you? What’s your number?” you ask, pushing the guy to a mental corner as Tsukishima and his team glares at him while waiting for how he’ll answer. An embarrassed blush replaces the previously infatuated one as he realizes that he shouldn’t have made the mistake of hitting on you.

“I-I’m not really sure,” his voice loses any shred of confidence it once had.

“Oh. That’s too bad,” you feign sympathy.

“Yeah.” The guy looks down. “Guess I’ll see you around,” he adds before retreating defeatedly.

“Bye! Nice to meet you,” you wave cordially. ‘Whoever you are, newbie elephant,’ you say to yourself as you watch the unfamiliar member of the Elephants go back to his team, a team you wiped the floor with last season.

Until now, you don’t understand why people still even bother. You welcomed the flirtations, but never really went out with anybody. You’re not really opposed to getting in a relationship, but like -- Gooood! They’re all so uninteresting. Rejecting them is more fun than the mere prospect of dating them.

You feel a familiar touch on your shoulder.

“Good job boosting the team morale,” Coach Mari says in a volume that only you can hear as she pats you.

“Thanks, Coach!” You grin at her praise.

You turn around to check your players and your eyes instantly land on Tsukishima who had just put on his white headphones and began scrolling at his phone. Around him, everyone else has already started stretching.

You bounce your way to him, knowing that you’d instantly get his attention even without saying anything. But even with you ogling when you stopped in front of him, he still doesn’t budge.

“Tsukishima.”

No response.

‘Heh,’ you snicker internally. He never fails to amuse you when he tries to ignore you.

“Tsu~ ki~ shi~ ma~” You bob your head sideways, popping at the opposing sides of his phone so he’ll notice you.

You don’t miss the minute twitch of his eyes as he drags his phone closer to him in an attempt to shut you out.

Tsk tsk. He should know better by now that you're not the type to back away.

You go beside him instead, tiptoeing so you can see what he’s so busy looking at. As soon as your arms touch his, he puts down his phone and irritatedly removes his headphones.

He’s shooting daggers at you, making you giddy with excitement as he looks like he’s about to say something you. You hold his gaze with a raised eyebrow and subtle smirk that you couldn’t suppress. Did he get fed up already? Is he finally going to say something?

‘Do it. Do it. Do it,’ you chant in your head.

He takes in a painful deep breath instead. “What?” The single word contains so much disdain that you want to cackle so bad.

“Shouldn’t you be stretching?” you query.

“In a bit.”

You leisurely shake your head with disapproval. “I know you’re a lazy ass fucker sometimes,” you begin. “But you always help us win. You’re our meanest, tallest, best blocker.” Your gaze drops down to his ankles and travels up.

“So,” you continue, dropping your voice amusedly, “stretch those gorgeous, God-given, legs you have.” Your eyes linger on his thighs before landing up to his face to smile sweetly at him. “Will you?”

This is one of the moments you’re pretty sure he won’t dare talk back at you. Why? Because you’re one hundred percent right, and he knows that too.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t hate it.

He glares at you for one second and walks towards the rest of the team to join them.

Playing at the professional level, he always considers one match to be a big win already, even if it’s just the first match of the regular rounds. Ever since he became a starter for Sendai Frogs, he was not allowed to slack off even for one rally. He could take the lecture if it’s from Coach, but he couldn’t stomach it if it’s from you.

Even before the match started, you were already on his grill, pestering him just because he wasn’t warming up yet. He was pissed the whole game and put extra effort than usual to make sure that you won’t have anything to say after.

“Um, excuse me.” A girl from Red Rabbits blocks him on his way to the restroom. “Tsukishima, right?”

He can tell that she is trying her best to look nonchalant, but the familiar tint on her face is telling.

Tsukishima had never understood girls who approach him for anything remotely romantic. Does he look like he’s interested? It’s not that he’s not open to the idea of dating, but he finds it unpleasant when people go after him because they like how he plays. Worse, for some obtuse reason like him being ‘cute.’

“Yes. Why?”

She smiles at him bashfully with her arms crossed behind her. “I’m also a middle blocker. I was really inspired with how you read block so well. If it’s okay with you, can you teach me how you do it?”

Why would he do that? He’s already a senior college student who’s also a professional athlete. He has no reason to go out of his way to teach someone read blocking. Especially someone who’s already supposed to know it since (as she claims) she’s also a middle blocker. Judging from where they currently are, someone from Division 1 no less.

“Sorry. I’m really busy,” he says bluntly.

“Oh, okay. Sorry for bothering you.” She bows then takes off immediately.

He watches as the girl from Red Rabbits scampers off as quickly as humanly possible. Did she really think he’d agree to it?

He is too occupied to notice the faint sound of footsteps behind him, and only when you speak does he notice your presence.

“Aww, poor girl going out of her way to ask you out.”

He groans. Why are you even here? You’re supposed to be checking on the team since their match just ended.

You fall into step beside him as he brushes your comment off and continues heading for the rest rooms.

“I didn’t ask her to,” he calmly responds despite your irksome presence.

“How are you going to get a girlfriend like that?” you ask exaggeratedly as if not getting in a relationship will lead to his ruin.

“I don’t need one.”

You gasp. “Damn, Tsukishima. Men your age are all about raging hormones. Where do you put all that raging testosterone?”

He purses his lips in a corner, his jaw tensing at your remark. Men his age? You talk as if you’re older when you’re in the same year he is.

Also, what the fuck?

Now you’re nagging about his personal life too? You’re already aggravating as the team manager. Now you’re even sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.

His blatant irritation must have shown in his face because you suddenly let out a giggle. “My bad, my bad. Don’t look so scary. Geez. Where you get action is none of my business. I just followed you to let you know that we’re leaving in twenty minutes.”

You turn around, about to go back but stop before you make the first step. “Oh, and we have a meeting later. I did the stat sheets of the game and gave it to the coach already. Great blocking, Tsukishima!” You pat his shoulder twice with a proud smile, then saunter off back to the arena.

Damn it. If only you aren’t so good at being a manager, he would actually be able to dislike you to the fullest. Not only that, he wouldn’t feel that silly, tiny contentment he felt upon hearing you.

Chapter 1 || masterlist

Taglist:(those crossed out can’t be tagged)

@ameliaxo @suikrem @akaashisslave @tsumurai @babythotshq

#tsukishima x reader #tsukishima x you #tsukishima fluff #tsukishima crack #haikyuu x reader #tsukishima angst #tsukisima series #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu crack

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berlinbabylon · 3 years

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Hi! A few weeks ago, in an answer, you made reference to Volker Bruch's role in Unsere Mütter, Unsere Väter. I've never seen it and had been wanting to (although I'm arguably less motivated now that Volker Bruch has been so ... ugh lately), but would you mind expanding upon what you meant? This whole situation is so disappointing and frustrating (but I say this as someone who only discovered BB/VB in December of last year)!

Oh boy, where to begin! The issues with Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter are so layered. I guess I'll break it down into: (1) Issues with the miniseries itself, and (2) issues with the reception of it.

1) So as to the first point, it's been a long time since I saw and I don't want to be too negative about it. It's well-made and some parts of it are better than others. I remember that I didn't think the writing was great (that's true for many German productions where the scripts tend to be the weak link), like it relied too much on coincidental meetings of characters in unlikely scenarios and so on. But okay, whatever. The actual issue with the miniseries arises from the way in which it was titled and marketed ("our mothers, our fathers" – of course Generation War sounds a bit more oblique in English and obfuscates that the people behind the miniseries wanted to do something that was supposedly representative of what "our" immediate ancestors went through during the war). From a historian's POV, the group of young people that they chose to focus on was really not in any way, shape or form representative of most young German people at the time and you can't blame the Polish for being pissed about the representation they got (which painted the Polish partisans as antisemitic and the issue with that wasn't that antisemitism didn't exist among Polish partisans but rather that the way the miniseries emphasizes their antisemitism while being way too revisionist about the German protagonists in that regard is just not a good look). A history professor put everything into words that I was thinking back then, it's in German but you can put it through DeepL and I highly recommend the read, regardless of how you feel about the miniseries: https://taz.de/Unsere-Muetter-unsere-Vaeter/!5070893/ ("Nazis are always the others" – yes there are some evil German Nazis of course, the cliché ones, the commanding officers, the Gestapo guy and so on but we are not invited to identify with them, we are not invited to consider them part of our ancestry and we are also not invited to consider that most Germans at the time were not victims of circumstance but active participants in the system, unless we're talking about resistance groups which were obviously the exception and not what the miniseries posits as the core 'generation' – one who, we might add, would've been exactly the one to have gone through the whole youth indoctrination unlike older people at the time). So yeah there's a lot to unpack there in terms of how German remembrance culture works and I'll leave it at that, it's a huge topic that would need its own essay. The miniseries is 'fine' TV but it has a certain role in cultural memory production that is, at the very least, questionable and should be considered with some critical distance from its qualities as a drama.

2) There's another issue though and that's more what I was referring to. Basically Volker Bruch playing a Wehrmacht soldier in that miniseries gained him quite a following of wehraboos and in some cases straight up Neonazis. For the longest time, whenever you were searching for posts about him here on Tumblr, they came from accounts that... man, how do I say this. Okay first of all wehraboos are Wehrmacht stans and I came across a big number of them in this context (and in the context of Volker Bruch fandom specifically) where their tumblrs were all about the aesthetic~ of German Wehrmacht soldiers and I just... to say that I found these blogs disturbing is putting it mildly. Often these were run by young women from countries like the Netherlands, Italy or wherever else in the world and my only explanation for this phenomenon is that they grew up with a very stereotypical view of Germans during WWII = evil, so when they discovered that some of them were young (sometimes handsome) men who were also just regular guys, they took this to mean that everyone had been terribly mistaken to lump in 'regular' soldiers with the SS and so they ran in the other direction. I mean, obviously there are distinctions to be made. But the Wehrmacht was also heavily involved in war crimes, so. All that teenage fawning over black and white pictures of real people who may have been involved in real atrocities... well. But that was still comparatively mild. When I first made Babylon Berlin gifs (before it was shown in the US on Netflix, before I made this sideblog, before there was a sizeable interest in these gifs aside from Volker Bruch stans), the accounts that reblogged them... I mean, there were actual Neonazi accounts among those. One I will never forget. Back then I still looked at reblogs to see if people had some commentary in the tags and so I opened this one blog and it was dedicated to Reinhard Heydrich, the "Butcher of Prague". On the front page, there were reblogs of Hitler gifs. Hitler greeting some kids, people doing the Nazi salute. The rest I've blocked from my memory. I had accidentally stumbled across a corner of Tumblr that was entirely sinister. I felt so sick. I ended up blocking and reporting it but this hellsite never gave me a reply so who even knows if anything happened.

So long story short: Ever since then I've resented the fact that Volker Bruch being in Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter gained him Neonazi followers (also tells you something about the miniseries, doesn't it) and I also resented that me just wanting to make Babylon Berlin gifs meant I had to see this stuff. So I stopped making any BB gifs (or at least any containing him) for a while and it's also the reason I never made many gifs of Gereon unless requested. I don't want to say that I feel vindicated after finding out that Volker Bruch is a complete idiot because I never paid much attention to him personally but I was also never his biggest fan, I find his acting range limited, he has a certain vibe and look that goes well with certain period dramas (actually only 20th century ones because he looked rough in the Goethe movie... I actually much prefer Alexander Fehling as an actor but that's neither here nor there). Anyway, there you go.

#ask #reply #anonymous #volker bruch's wife miriam stein is also in the miniseries #(and in the goethe movie)#honestly they both always gave me a vibe #now that i think about it #but i just thought they were hipsters #(also welcome to the babylon berlin fandom!)#(it's actually been a much better place since it's not just volker bruch fans anymore lol)#(also: normal volker bruch fans exist and i mean no offense to them at all)#(this is just about a certain kind of following he acquired through unsere mütter unsere väter)

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mercuryonparklane · 3 years

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Since Taylor released “You All Over Me” last night and also posted the “Love Story” remix lyric video that includes a group picture with Emily in it, I am reposting this from my other blog (because at the time I posted it my other blog was too new to show up in the tags). I’m not necessarily saying that YAOM is about Emily...

Anyway, here is a post about “Breathe” and how it is the only Grammy nominated song of Taylor’s that she has performed just once:

Prior to Lover Taylor had 9 Grammy nominated songs (that appeared on her own records): “You Belong With Me”. “White Horse”, “Breathe”, “Mean”, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”, “Begin Again”, “Shake It Off”, “Blank Space”, and “Bad Blood”.

According to Taylor herself, despite multiple requests from fans over the years, she has only sung “Breathe” live one time. She performed it for the first and, so far, only time on August 18, 2018 during her reputation Stadium Tour show in Miami.

I decided to compare this to how many times she has sung her other Grammy nominated songs (I chose not to include anything from Lover or folklore because she obviously hasn’t had the opportunity to perform those songs as she normally would):

(Disclaimer: the data related to the number of times Taylor has played each song comes from setlist.fm, so it may not be 100% accurate, but it is close enough to demonstrate the purpose of this post)

“Breathe”

Date of release (as a single): October 23, 2008

# of times Taylor has performed this song live in total: 1

“White Horse”:

Date of release (as a single): December 9, 2008

# of times Taylor has performed this song live in total: 137

“You Belong With Me”

Date of release (as a single): April 26, 2009

# of times Taylor has performed this song live in total: 381

“Mean”

Date of release (as a single): March 13, 2011

# of times Taylor has performed this song live in total: 196

“We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”

Date of release (as a single): August 13, 2012

# of times Taylor has performed this song live in total: 272 (that # includes 1 time she performed the song as a mashup with “Bad Blood” and 53 times as a mashup with “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things”)

“Begin Again”

Date of release (as a single): October 1, 2012

# of times Taylor has performed this song live in total: 75

“Shake It Off”

Date of release (as a single): August 18, 2014

# of times Taylor has performed this song live in total: 189

“Blank Space”

Date of release (as a single): November 10, 2014

# of times Taylor has performed this song live in total: 166

“Bad Blood”

Date of release (as a single): May 17, 2015

# of times Taylor has performed this song live in total: 141 (that # includes the 53 times she performed the song as a mashup with “Should’ve Said No”)

As you can see, there is a pretty glaring disparity between the number of times she performed the other 8 songs live compared to the 1 time she performed “Breathe” live.

The song was released as a promotional single in the lead up to the release of Fearless, but wasn’t really a main single. It never had a music video, which means that it was probably never meant to be pushed for the charts. Although, it did spend one week on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at #87 on the week ending November 29, 2008, following the release of Fearless.

The song was co-written with Colbie Caillat, who also features on the track. Colbie was fairly popular at the time, in particular her debut single “Bubbly” had been very successful the previous year. So, you might think Taylor’s team/label would have wanted to push this song a bit more, but for some reason they didn’t.

The song seemed to be received well by critics too. There were obviously plenty of people who thought the song was good enough to earn a Grammy nomination. Although, it did end up losing to Colbie’s other, more commercially successful collaboration (“Lucky” with Jason Mraz).

So, it has been established that the song was released as a promotional single, it was nominated for a Grammy, and it was a collaboration with a popular (at the time) artist. These three factors combined might make someone wonder why she didn’t perform this song live until almost 10 years after its release. Just to reiterate, Taylor performed “Begin Again”, the song she performed second least out of this list, 75 times compared to the 1 and only time she performed “Breathe” in 2018.

This brings me back to the point that all of these other songs have a music video and were pushed as singles, whereas “Breathe” was only a promotional single and never had a music video.

Perhaps it would be fairer compare “Breathe” with the other promotional single Taylor released in the lead up to Fearless (I am excluding “Change” because it does have a music video and was used during the 2008 Olympics):

“You’re Not Sorry”

Date of release (as a single): October 28, 2008

# of times Taylor has performed this song live in total: 124

Yes, that’s right. Taylor has performed “You’re Not Sorry”, a song that got about the same amount of promotion as “Breathe”, well over 100 times.

Fearless was Taylor’s sophomore album and it was her first tour as a headliner. She had two albums worth of songs, plus a handful of others, to choose from. “Breathe” did not make the setlist. The only other song from Fearless that was not a part of the main setlist for that tour was “The Best Day”, a song that she performed live 6 times between 2009 and 2018, including twice during the Fearless Tour.

So, “Breathe”, again, was:

co-written by and features an artist who was popular at the time

released as a promotional single

nominated for a Grammy

never performed live before August 18, 2018

Which begs the question, why did she wait so long to perform the song live?

It has pretty much been established that the song is about Taylor’s original fiddle player, Emily. Taylor has never named names on this one, but most Swifties, even non-Gaylors, think the song is about her. Colbie Caillat basically confirmed this longtime fan theory in an April 2020 interview, where she says that Taylor “was writing about something she was going through with a band member at the time, and she was pouring her heart out about it”.

Taylor did say in the “making of” video for “Breathe” that the song is about a friend:

“It was total therapy because I came in and I was like, ‘Look, you know, one of my best friends, you know, I’m gonna have to not see anymore and is not gonna be part of what I do and it’s, like, the hardest thing to go through.’ It’s, like, crazy listening to the song cause you’d think it would be about a relationship, but it’s really about, like, losing a friend and, like, having a fallout and just the loss…”

She also adds:

“It’s never specific as to why. That’s my favorite thing about it. It doesn’t talk about why or whose fault it was cause sometimes the hardest time and way to say goodbye is when it’s nobody’s fault. It just has to stop.”

But, again, I’m pretty sure that Taylor herself has never said that it was about Emily. The official story is that Emily left the band to attend law school, but there is a rumor that she was actually fired. More specifically, the rumor is that she was fired when the true nature of their relationship was discovered.

This is all old news to Gaylors, of course. I said in my first post for this blog that I would not go too far into this theory due to the fact that Emily was 21 when she was hired and Taylor was only 16 at that time. I do think it is possible that Taylor had strong feelings towards Emily and maybe those feelings were unrequited or maybe they were reciprocated. Either way, perhaps someone found out somehow and the fallout was Emily getting fired.

It is also not improbable that Emily decided that she didn’t really like being on the road or the business side of being a professional musician and wanted to pursue a different career. If that was the case, then I do wonder why Taylor felt the need to repeatedly sing “I’m sorry” at the end of “Breathe”.

The only thing that would make sense, other than a potential firing that Taylor somehow felt responsible for, is that they had a fight when Emily broke the news to Taylor that she was going to leave the band. Hence, Taylor feeling the need to apologize so profusely.

Even if that is the case (here is where I project a bit/draw from my own experience), it still seems, to me, like Taylor felt a deep connection to Emily that might have blurred the line between platonic and romantic feelings. Maybe Emily is the first woman that she had those feelings for (ignoring “Angelina” and “Me And Britney” for this point) and so when she left it hit her really hard. Thus, she couldn’t bear to sing about it, even by the time the Fearless Tour started almost a year and half later.

That is all speculation, of course. Still, I can’t help but wonder why she would let almost an entire decade go by before she decided to sing a literal Grammy nominated song on stage for the first time. Especially considering the fact that she has performed all of her other Grammy nominated songs well over 100 times, aside from “Begin Again” (which she has still performed 74 times more than “Breathe”).

#taymily #gaylor #gaylor swift

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goatsandgangsters · 3 years

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Hi! I know you have probably answered this before, but I was wondering how you think meyer and lucky got together (in boardwalk empire)? I think about it a lot, and I just can never fully grasp what I feel about it, especially because this was in the 1920s

yeeeeeeeEEEEeeeeSSSS oh I’m so glad you asked, I’m gonna have so much fun! So YES I do have specific headcanons for how they got together, though I don’t know if I’ve ever actually laid them out explicitly? (also I’m saying “my” headcanons but I wanna acknowledge that they originate from Friend Conversations that happened a number of years ago, to the point where I don’t even know who originally said what but the idea of it is just lodged in my brain now. BUT ON THE FLIP SIDE, I don’t want to present this as This Is The Fanon We Agreed On, Everyone Has To Think This, because fandom should never operate that way. ANYWAY)

TL;DR: I think Meyer’s near-death experience in Emerald City was an instigating event for them to get together, because it shakes them enough to act on their feelings. Plus, it coincides nicely with Vince and Anatol becoming more comfortable around one another as actors in a way that lends itself to that reading. BUT I AM NOT THE EXPERT OR THE ARBITER ON THIS MATTER, and I think any interpretation is perfectly wonderful!

So the headcanon I operate with is that they got together after the near-death experience in Emerald City. That originates from a Watsonian vs. Doylist perspective on Vince and Anatol’s acting. They’re not quiiiiite in sync with each other in the first few eps they share, which I’m sure in actuality is them finding their groove and their dynamic as actors. But from a Watsonian perspective, it’s really easy to read their earlier scenes as pining. Like in their first scene together in Home, they’re both constantly looking at each other, but never quite meeting each other’s eye. It’s like that thing where you have a crush on someone, so you keep looking at them, but oh god they saw me and you look quickly away. And they both keep doing it!

Some of their other early scenes—like with the D’Alessios while Charlie’s playing pool, or that weirdly staged scene earlier in Emerald City where Meyer’s sitting way farther away at the table—they may exchange looks, but there’s a fleetingness to it. But then you watch the scene at the end of season 1 where they’re talking to AR with the umbrellas AND THE PSYCHIC BOND HAS ARRIVED. They are having those telltale Full On Conversations with their glances! They are synced up. They’re a team, they’re a unit, they’ve hit that dynamic that they have for the rest of the show.

And in actuality, probably it was Vince and Anatol finding their footing with each other as actors. But if you read into that textually, they go from “staring at the other but constantly dodging eye contact, like they’re afraid to be caught looking” to “we’re having an entire conversation in one look” and you’ve gotta think: what changed?

Meyer’s near-death experience in Emerald City, conveniently enough, happens in the middle. And I think that works well as an instigating moment for them, because it’s BIG. Meyer almost died, in another state—in goddamn New Jersey!—and that’s enough to make anyone act on things they wouldn’t otherwise act on or reevaluate life and relationships.

In terms of their feelings for one another and when those developed and how, my usual interpretation is that… I mean Charlie was heart-eyes from the jump, but not in a romantic way, whereas Meyer was the first to develop full-on pining feelings feelings. Because obviously Charlie was not like “I have feelings feelings for this tiny child” when they first met, but he DID very much imprint on Meyer like a little baby duckling and was like HEY I LIKE THIS KID, WE’RE GONNA BE FRIENDS, CAN I FOLLOW YOU HOME whereas Meyer was like “um, what the fuck.” Classic “enthusiastic puppy befriends sulky cat” dynamic. But then when the FEELINGS FEELINGS come into it, I think of Meyer as having been harboring feelings for Charlie for a while. (also basically all of this is from @meyerlansky, because we successfully tag-teamed on headcanons by one of us wanting to hyperanalyze Meyer and the other wanting to hyperanalyze Charlie and then we just shared!) I mean, you know, Charlie’s good-looking and they’re friends and Charlie’s so casual about flinging his arm around Meyer’s shoulders or roughhousing with him and Meyer’s insides do a little flip that they shouldn’t be doing, but they’re getting older and Charlie’s starting to sleep around with girls and that stings and bothers him in a way that It Shouldn’t, but also It Is What It Is, there’s nothing he can do about it, they’re friends and they’re business partners and that should be enough and it’s all it’ll ever be so focus on the task at hand and ignore the flip in his stomach.

For Charlie, I’m not actually sure WHEN he realizes there are feelings for Meyer. I don’t have a solid, definitive default interpretation for that. But in early season 1, pre Meyer-getting-introduced, he’s definitely enamored and smitten with Gillian, and he’s similarly moonstruck towards AR. I think that can read as, “trying really hard to distract yourself so you don’t acknowledge that maybe you’re in love with your best friend.” Whether he’s doing that consciously or unconsciously, I could also go either way on that.

A lot of this interpretation is based around the simple fact that Charlie was introduced and established in the show before Meyer, so I wonder how my headcanons would have been different if they’d been introduced together from the start. But with how the show unfolds, the change as Anatol and Vince find their groove as actors, plus a near-death experience to make someone act on something they wouldn’t otherwise act on—it all lends itself nice and neatly to Emerald City being the get-together point.

(I know a number of people have worked that headcanon into their own fics and written post-Emerald City get-together, which I can rec you. Though again, by no means do I want this to come across as “this is what the fandom has decided, you have to think it too” because that’s never how fandom should operate. No one is the arbiter of When Did Charlie and Meyer First Kiss. I love get-togethers in general, so I will always be happy reading any get-together fic that happens at any point in time, with any instigating factor, in any way, because that’s just delightful!)

Here are some get-together and/or pining fics that I can recommend:

born once of flesh, then again of fire, i am reborn a third time (a post-Emerald City get-together)

Contact (another post-Emerald City get-together by @rubecso)

Making Accommodations (by @transdracosmalfoy, the post-Emerald City genre lives on!)

to see God in the skyline (by @lurusciutelumare a sprawling masterpiece of chapters intertwining Charlie and Meyer’s childhood and growing up. It takes a while to reach the get-together point, but the whole thing is well worth the read. The entire fic is set pre-Boardwalk Empire)

beg dead trees for money next (by @meyerlansky, a pre-Boardwalk fic of Meyer realizing he has feelings for Charlie which is one of my faves for a lot of reasons)

(also I’m sorry if I missed anyone’s get-together fic. I tried to wrack my brain but I’ve been in this fandom for, uh, a while and it’s hard to remember back sometimes. Feel free to add yours in if I did!)

Also re: getting together in the time period and how it being the 1920s shapes things, there would definitely be added concerns and dangers, though I don’t think it’s necessarily a black-and-white thing. I don’t think the wider attitudes of society towards queerness would have impacted them as much in comparison to the specific culture of lower Manhattan and the criminal spheres they operated in.

Because on the one hand, in the criminal world in which they were operating, it likely would have been dangerous for anyone to know that they’re queer. It probably would have hurt their business and their reputation among their peers and rivals, and—because of how masculinity and queerness interconnect and operate—would look like weakness to others. But in terms of “well can Charlie make a move, because it’s dangerous if Meyer doesn’t reciprocate or reacts badly” (or vice versa), it would reflect equally bad on both of them? Like, if Charlie made a move and Meyer was like “nah,” he can’t very well go gossiping to the whole Lower East Side about it, because it hurts his reputation too, it hurts his business, and they were also close enough as friends that even if there wasn’t reciprocation, neither one of them would do anything to damage the other’s reputation like that.

As far as how they feel about it on an internalized level, I definitely don’t think they… care from a legal and/or moral standpoint. I don’t think Charlie’s like “oh god I’m going to hell for liking men,” because by the time he and Meyer kiss, he has DEFINITELY KILLED PEOPLE. They already break a lot of laws all the time. So that wider societal stigma from a moralizing perspective probably doesn’t matter to them much, because wider society already thinks they’re an “undesirable criminal element,” they’re already “dangerous immigrants,” so what’s it matter if they also bang on top of doing crimes and killing people? Charlie and Meyer are already outside the Predominant Ethical Framework of Society by virtue of their class background and criminal enterprises (and class and queerness have huge intersections historically in terms of what the experience was like). Being in an urban area in the 1920s (especially New York), queer sexuality is something they would have known about; it probably wouldn’t have been any more shocking than any other “vice” they grew up around in that area.

If they do have any concerns or guilt about what they’re feeling for one another, for Charlie I think it all has to do with masculinity and with the machismo he’s grown up around. It’s also something he’s already touchy about, given the emasculation that happened being called Sal (which, at the time, was common nickname for Sally) and historically he has a history of experiencing sexual violence. So I can see him struggling with conflating that together—as well as worrying that his feelings for Meyer are unwanted and similar to what he experienced. Meyer, I would say, cares less about the performance of masculinity, but I do think he sees himself as an eventual family man in a way that Charlie does not. @meyerlansky also has more thoughts on Meyer + sexuality + being a-spec.

I’M SORRY FOR MY LONG TANGENTS!! I literally do not have the ability to be succinct.

IN SUMMARY, I think Meyer’s near-death experience in Emerald City was an instigating event for them to get together, because it shakes them enough to act on their feelings. Plus, it coincides nicely with Vince and Anatol becoming more comfortable around one another as actors in a way that lends itself to that reading. BUT I AM NOT THE EXPERT OR THE ARBITER ON THIS MATTER, and I think any interpretation is perfectly wonderful!

As for the time period and being the 1920s, it definitely has ramifications on how they conceive of themselves—particularly in relation to their ethnic and class identities—but that also the history of sexuality is very non-linear and I think queerness is less shocking and scandalous to them than it would have been to someone more upper-class who didn’t grow up in the Lower East Side, or to someone more rural, or to someone who was more “inside” the social framework of the time, as opposed to being forced outside of it already by class, ethnicity, and criminality.

Finally, and most importantly, they should KISS!!!!

#boardwalk empire #charlie luciano #meyer lansky #boardwalk meta #otp: soulmates in crime #emerald city #THANK YOU FOR ASKING #I had fun writing this all out!#they are fun to talk about #anon tag

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dappersheep · 3 years

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Food Fantasy: An Analysis on what killed a Golden Goose (1/3)

So first things first, disclaimers! I do not claim nor pretend to know every nook and cranny, ins and outs of the history of FooFan's conception, existence and uncertain future. I do not own the game nor its characters, only the opinions and thoughts stated hereon out.

This was born to vent out my frustrations with how a game like this was abused poorly by its own developer and publisher instead of being nurtured to become its full potential that could have overshadowed and remained better than the likes of Tencent's Tales of Food --I could dream, but it honestly had the potential to be.

Out of respect for the main tag, I personally will not be tagging this post and the following two with the main tag. If you want to tag it yourself with it, that's your choice. Only followers of my blog will see this.

This analysis is divided into three parts: Funtoy, Elex, and the Community. It starts under the cut. Well let's get started.

Funtoy

Ah yes, the creator. The developer. You'd think that with their sudden rise to fame during their global launch, they'd have used the massive profits they earned within the first quarter of 2018 to improve certain things about the game and then trickled it down as quickly as possible towards Global, right? Yeah, I thought so too.

After playing the game since launch, I've seen and experienced way too many things that just hammer in the fact that this is one of the most unfair gacha I've played in years. Some reasons being the following:

(Note: These are experiences ONLY on Global's version, it may also apply to CN being the original server)

⦁ The game's gacha model is aimed towards maximum predation on its players. F2p are forced to either spend some money (and thus tempt them to keep spending after getting a taste of it), or risk not even getting a good ascension of the unit to be useful at all. Paying for the event packs also doesn't guarantee that you would be able to secure a spot in the ranks. In fact, if you can't comprehend how the battle mechanics work, you could even de-rank. Fun way to burn that 800$, huh? At least you have the skin from rebates.

⦁ A little less known thing and probably theoretical at worst, the long joked about spaghetti coding of the game along with an outdated spine technology for the sprites could very well be the reason why a 2D game like this experiences the shittiest lags. Also how easy it is to hack this game with the right know-how.

⦁ Speaking of bad gameplay mechanics, did you know you could spend over fifty Mirrors and not get that final enhancement from +9 to +10 simply because there's absolutely no tangible safety net before +10?

⦁ If you're F2P, this game is terrible in giving you resources to stockpile. Because Funtoy certainly doesn't have a lot of weekly/monthly or even friendly events wherein you can get resources without spending another kind of resource. The Hawthorne event's rewards are lackluster at best, Bingo is severely limited in what it gives, and Recall also doesn't give much for a big event that only happens (supposedly) every 6 months. Did I also mention that daily resource rewards also kinda suck compared to how much you burn in just one event?

⦁ Monthly subs are a scam. Yes, you heard that right. My point of comparison here is Arknights. A monthly in AK allows you to have enough to 10-pull after 30 days, on top of a bit of stamina to help you. In FooFan? You have two monthly subs that do different things and even then, you won't have enough to 10-pull by the end of 30 days, nor is the stamina you get enough to even stockpile and ease the pressure of your need to save for the Gates or that stamina event that suddenly popped up.

⦁ A conga line of 'Must procure this unit at a high ascension to do well in the following events!'. You missed the first Pizza event? Missed the first Turkey event? God forbid, you weren't able to 5* your Beer on his debut? Well sorry, that 5* Black Tea of yours isn't gonna do squat to give you good damage. No, your 2* B-52 also isn't going to do much of anything with his lackluster damage capabilities. If you want a chance to get those event URs again, you have to wait for their pool with laughably limited pulls... and a bloated price to even pull.

⦁ The events starting after the first iteration of Turkey event get even more paywalled. As far as I remember, by the time Minestrone rolled around, an F2P with ample crystal resources can only get 2* at best. 3* and above are paywalled.

⦁ The game has incompetent balancing. The devs themselves likely have little experience in gameplay design and balancing, especially for a game with a growing roster of characters . A prime example of them launching a character not knowing it would pretty much unbalance the game? Look no further than Beer. The guy had to have a couple of nerfs done to him because he was just too meta. You know what's sadder? Before the 'switch' to Brave meta, almost all meta units was built to benefit off the Beer meta.

⦁ Artifacts. Do I even have to explain how the introduction of such a game feature so early into the lifespan of this game essentially fucked over the balance even more? Not to mention, all the more reason you'd be crying with the Gates of Trials demanding so much out of your stamina and crystal resources. F2Ps are again, the ones that suffer in this part. What's their reason? Profit, of course.

⦁ The nerf of resto chests. This was the primary source for people who were saving up stamina for the Gates... until Funtoy decided they were being too generous to their playerbase and dropped the stamina probability rate to 1% or less.

⦁ Terrible UI layout and design. Come on, be honest now, you've lost several thousand of your hard earned crystals buying screws in the fishing shop because you didn't notice that shiny warning in small text and a green button with the crystal image slapped on it, didn't you?

⦁ Look at all these SRs! All of them! Wow, they even outnumber the Rs by at least 80! What's that? There's more URs now too compared to Rs and Ms combined? That can't be real. But seriously, you'd think Funtoy could make some of these SRs into Rs and add them to the perm pool/shard fusion so people aren't stuck pulling Macaron or Dorayaki every time. They could have also populated the Team Up rewards with SRs instead of Rs. But you know... that won't bring them profit. Haha... haha.... Oh and I haven't even told you about the SP class...!

⦁ Lore. Yes, I'm sure by now you're aware that the in-game lore is different from the ones in the non-SP Food Soul bios, in the SP Food Soul bios that sort of ties in with the New World story (that global will never be getting btw). At this point, Funtoy handwaves the confusion away by saying, 'they're all different timelines'. Yes yes, an easy and cliche move to explain how shitty the writing direction went after a while. I don't know what happened, all I know is that lore got weird(er) when they introduced SP Rice.

⦁ They. Keep. Adding. More. Characters! They fail to see that a lot of their earlier players have imprinted on the first few waves of Food Souls and they sadly also fail to properly give some of them more story expansion... or skins. At the moment, they're shelling out so many JP-centric Food Souls because... as I see it? They're pandering to the last bastion of whales they have.

⦁ Merchandise. And I mean a variety of merchandise that isn't using the same official art every time. Like they couldn't afford to commission a couple of artists one or two times to make unique merchandise that would sell. They started too late on that train, and they even made it too hard for anyone not in CN or JP to even procure what already exists. Not to mention, they keep using the same 'popular' set of characters for their merchandise and never really expanding out to making merch for other characters.

These are all the things I can list off at the top of my head why Funtoy as a developer sucks ass. They could sweeten their words all they want, it won't change the fact that they've certainly made way too many bad decisions and found out about it too late, and now they're desperate to keep Food Fantasy alive to keep their profits coming in to make whatever that cat girl game they have and that supposedly 'side-game' FF2 they announced.

There may have been problems out of their control that I or you do not see, but one thing is for sure, they were blinded by greed for the money they were raking in on all their servers at the start, and never actually bothered to invest in more manpower in the right places to improve the game, both gameplay-wise and worldbuilding wise. It's actually saddening that this game could have been so much more with several QoLs and a more fleshed out lore, perhaps even spacing out the number of new units they keep introducing while going back to giving their old units more attention.

That's it for Funtoy. We're moving onto Elex in the next part and boy is that also a trip.

#ravings of a madman #food fantasy but not tagged right

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danpuff-ao3 · 3 years

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ao3 tag game

1. How many works do you have on ao3? 61 total. 53 under danpuff and 8 under danniperson. (I have other fics on other sites that never made it to AO3. I'm debating whether or not to move them over.)

2. What's your current AO3 wordcount? 387,868. Hopefully will add more soon once I get out of this funk I've been in!

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they? Hmm. Technically 3, but I deleted my Stormlight Archive fics (for reasons) so I only have Harry Potter (danpuff) and MCU (danniperson) posted on AO3 currently.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Can we take a moment to laugh that 4/5 are from my Yes, Daddy series? Cuz I'm laughing about it. And #5 being my single Harry Potter longfic LOL.

1.) Daddy Knows Best

2.) Daddy's Boy

3.) [title feels like a tad much for Tumblr, just know it's a Daddy fic]

4.) Who's Your Daddy?

5.) The Best Kept Secrets

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not. I try to! I have some old ones I've been hesitant to get to since it's been such a long time, but I think one day I'll be brave and go answer them. Comments mean the world to me and I want the people who took time to leave me kind words to know how much I appreciate them!

6. What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending? Hmmm...Maybe The Mirror [Harry Potter, non-con] or come back to me (you're all i've ever wanted) [MCU, Steve/Howard & Stony]. I am rather fond of open endings, so probably several of those might feel pretty angsty there at the end. Exposure is probably a good one that ends at a sad place, but with a hopeful note.

7. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've ever written? No, but I'd like to! I have strong feelings about a Harry Potter & Percy Jackson crossover. (Though if you'd like to read Close Enough as a HP/PJ crossover, feel free!)

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic? Sadly, yes. It let to me purging some of my fics, which I sort of regret now. I've been tempted to purge since then but I always remind myself not to give people's unkind words that sort of power over me and my work. And that my work is valid and worthy of existing and meaningful to some people, even if not everyone cares for it.

9. Do you write smut? Heck yes!

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of, so let's hope not!

11. Have you ever co-written a fic before? No, but it sounds fun!

12. What's your all time favorite ship? SNARRY. I've been shipping them for 18 years (aka most of my life.) In the past year I've opened up to enjoying more rarepairs on the side (Dron, Dremus, Drarius, Chaco....um. Essentially, lots of Draco ships, especially if there's background snarry in the mix!)

13. What was the first fandom you wrote for? Harry Potter

14. What's your favorite fic you've written? That is difficult! I'm pretty proud of the following for various reasons:

> Take Heed, Dear Heart (I gender swapped EVERYONE, which was fun but also pretty eye-opening about the number of prominent male characters.)

> Romantic Notions (Very weird one, ngl. Involves Neville/plants. Yes, Neville/plants. Also unrequited Sneville. Background Snarry. Minor Dreville. It was a good time.) (I was very determined to write Neville/plants without it being a crack!fic. You can let me know how well I succeeded, LOL.)

> Collateral Damage (my Dron fic! It's gotten lots of love which makes me oh so happy! And I'm so so proud of how it came out!)

> The Yellow Door (concept that lived in my head for ages and ages until I figured out how to actually tell the story.)

> Spaghetti (fully living my dream of "other characters reacting to Snarry" and also friend angst.)

Tagging: ...anyone who wants to do it. (Which is essentially why I'm doing it!) I love reading these and hope to see more!

#ao3 tag game #about me #fun writerly things #play along if you like!

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weatherman667 · 3 years

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Tumblr Keeps Trying to Idiotically Monetize Us

I don’t mean it’s idiotic to try and monetize your property, but they keep doing it in the most idiotic ways.

First off, they banned porn. People’s opinions on porn vary from it’s ��literally rape, even if consented”, to “porn is good and holy”. Most people, however, are somewhere in the middle, in the “leave me alone” category”.

But, more salient to Tumblr is tumblr reached it’s success from porn. Literally. Literally literally. DeviantArt has been horribly fascist for a couple decades, and an exodus was inevitable. There was always a number of artists who wanted a new forum for the smut that was banned on DA, which was weirdly DA’s most sane policy. Tumblr allowed porn, and this caused a insanely large influx of people. Of course, the people following this porn also came to Tumblr. For a time, 90% of Tumblr was porn and porn followers, 1% feminists, and 9% assorted shitposters.

So, the porn ban made all the porn posters feel unwanted, but also made all of the rest of Tumblrites scared. Some of them stayed. I stayed because of the RWBY fan community, as it was the only thing not destroyed by the porn ban, as the porn ban didn’t just hit porn sites, but also ran afoul of THE ENTIRE POINT OF TUMBLR.

Tumblr has the interest graph instead of the social graph, meaning everyone was anonymous, and if you weren’t attacking people, you were free to do everything you wanted. Porn being one of them.

But, of course, Tumblr didn’t just ban porn. The porn ban actually came after a few years of shadowbanning porn blogs. The original way Tumblr worked is that everything was fine, and if you didn’t like something, you could put in Tumblr Saviour and block it. Until the shadowbans, mysteriously vanishing posts, etc.

Before the porn ban Tumblr started implementing a flag for explicit content.

Well, that works, right?

Being flagged as explicit shadowbanned you. They took the shadowbanning mechanics and just made it official.

Even if they didn’t explicitly tell us they were banning explicit content, we saw the writing on the wall.

Interestingly, NewTumblr has the mechanic of marking blogs and content from perfectly acceptable to completely explicity, and let’s you VOLUNTARILY block out content you do not want.

Unfortunately, the Tumblr fan community didn’t just pick up and move to another site, but scattered across the entire interwebs, and NewTumbl did not inherent any of the non-pornographic nature of Tumblr.

What happened on Tumblr, through, was the creatives left, and the pervert blogs just stopped tagging, and somehow still exist. It makes it harder to explicitly find the explicit material, but paradoxically makes it easier to stumble upon.

The next wave of monetization came with obvious scam ads and another wave of content banning. They also tried to add all the features we’ve come to Tumblr to escape from other social media sites, (like getting posts Out of Order; one of the things I hate the most about DA is their desire to curate all of the content).

Well, for some reason, censoring wrongthink and putting up obvious scam ads didn’t foster a lot of goodwill with the userbase.

Well, look, here come the premium blogs. People might spend 10 hours a day here, but doesn’t mean they want to pay for the privilege.

Seriously, at this point, the only thing keeping me on Tumblr is Firen Lhain. Worst case, I will still keep the same upload schedule to Ao3.

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shattered-catalyst · 3 years

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OCD Subtypes for the RPC

Part 1 is here

Well well well, we are back for Part 2 of the Roleplayer’s Guide to OCD.

Fellow Ocd Folks, I see you in those tags and I'm going to do my best to ensure those obsessions are represented here- BUT understand that physically it is not going to be possible to list every single one because I am one person. Regardless its incredibly brave of you all to rb and add things in the tags, I know its hard to talk about this shit and I see you. I see you.

Resultantly I typed this out and posted it in formatting to assist with accessibility in mind; if you cannot read it still ( I tried Im sorry!) i recommend the copy and paste method or getting the chrome extension bee-line reader.

There will be grammatical and spelling mistakes. Im sure spacing is odd some places, but you have to understand doing this is extremely anxiety provoking for me so Im just getting it done when I can.

Remember to use your critical thinking; not everyone has the same symptoms/compulsions/triggers and all that.

OCD is fluid. Its like liquid mercury. One day its a handful of subtypes another day its another different serving.

If you are in general squicked about certain topics even by mention read ahead with your own judgement. Remember us folks that have OCD have many disturbing and distressing experiences so if you are writing a character who has OCD and you can’t read about it just don’t give them that obsessive thought/ compulsion. Make sure writing is still a safe and enjoyable hobby for yourself first and foremost.

But ethically and morally I cannot and will not leave out the more disturbing bits. You have the ability to scroll by, I and many others do not get the chance to escape triggering content that our own mind creates.

So read ahead with your best judgement or at least skip around the squicky parts and educate yourself on what OCD is so people quite using it as a Obsessive Christmas/Corgi/Cat Disorder thing. Alright? Cool beans.

Okay so you made it passed post 1 and got under the read more. Give yourself a gold star for diving into this monster of a document.

Below is a crash course it is not meant to replace actual psychoeducation, personal research, or google. Honestly most of us do our research extensively but because OCD is treated so horribly by social media, media, and society in general.

I wasn’t sure where to throw these together because the education tools to learn fully about OCD are very specialized and thus very restricted. I found that many people DO have these experiences with OCD though so I will represent them throughout. I’ll also sprinkle some of my own experiences so you can get a good reference of a person who has the disorder and not just a randomly generated person.

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So OCD is made up of Obsessions, Trigger, Intrusive thought, Misinterpretation/feared consequence,Somatic and Psychological Anxiety, and Compulsions/Rituals.

Your character may not be able to list all of these. In fact if they aren't in ERP therapy they may not be able to puzzle these things out. But YOU as the writer should know them. Your character won’t be walking around talking to just ANYONE that they have OCD. Remember a huge aspect of OCD is it’s Shame. The disorder makes us feel intense shame regarding our intrusive thoughts, as a result OCD goes undiagnosed for years especially if it has pediatric onset.

We won’t tell anyone what we are experiencing or why we are doing x y or z. We act like nothing is wrong because to emotionally react is to admit to yourself- and therefore the world- that you have had this intrusive thought and are therefore by virtue a horrible person.[For further information I would suggest also researching PANDAS].

It may be noticeable if your character has an intrusive thought. They may wince or grimace or roll their eyes certainly, but they won’t open up to Joe at the cafe about how their brain is constantly torturing them. I apparently have a very noticeable eye twitch.

Depending on the nature of the intrusive thought it will get more or less of a reaction out of me. Its usually dependent on how distressing the intrusive thought is and/or if its a new one.

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You see OCD doesn’t sit still. It never looks the same. You’ll have your long haul intrusive thoughts that are with you for years but then you’ll have weird ass ones that just appear and demand their voice be heard yelling about cars hitting people or squirrels getting eaten.

Some people have similar ones! So while everyone is different there will always be someone out there with an intrusive thought similar to yours.

For instance; I bonded emotionally with a lady on reddit because we both have intrusive thoughts during storms that animals and the homeless are dying. We were both horribly relieved to find another person and also distressed that every snow or rain storm brings horrible images and whispers to your mind that while you are warm and snug in bed someone is freezing to death. And its all your fault.

Some days are better than others. As with all mental illnesses it isn’t CONSTANT ALARM BELLS. Some days it will be all alarms and other days it will be like a gentle whisper on the breeze. You can almost not notice it. Almost.

Obsessive thoughts run the gauntlet from ‘i will/could have/may/may accidentally harm etc’ something that you hold of value. This is any obsessive thought that you have: you think about repeatedly and not by choice, it is very anxiety provoking, it is unwanted, and unwelcome.

Mine run the scale from ‘squirrel will be murdered’ to ‘being responsible for harm’.

Compulsions or ‘rituals’ are any behavior done to alleviate the anxiety from the intrusive thought and trigger object. In short, compulsions and rituals are not fun. they are absolutely not logical, and we know they are not logical but we are forced to do them. Thats why its a disorder.

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To emphasize from post 1: magical thinking and the faulty link between thoughts and actions are hallmarks of OCD. Magical thinking can be anything from contamination to if I turn around three times or stare really hard at something the bad thing wont happen. Sounds weird and is weird and we know it is thats why its a disorder and not a delusion.

The faulty belief that thought=action is the biggest hurdle it is incredibly difficult to grasp, at least for me maybe some of you that have done further ERP can attest, that the mere concept of a thought not being the same as an action is completely and totally mind blowing.

Free will? Yeah thats terrifying. IDK about anyone else but free will is absolutely terrifying; what do you mean i could do anything i wanted?

Thats how you face OCD(WITH A TRAINED THERAPIST). You give in to ambiguity and the unknown. Its breaking that link between thought and action. Its incredibly difficult and draining. A five minute exposure leaves me in shatters for a week and two five minute ones had me ripping my nails past the nail beds with anxiety.

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Just a reminder: Do not have your character expose themself or expose folks with OCD to a trigger to “ help us get over with”. That is literally forcing someone with a mental illness into a break down and is not helpful. In fact its worse because a person knows about this intrusive thought and they tried to make it real. More shame and some trauma.

If you have OCD, more likely than not a family member or significant other has tried this with the purest of intentions. But it never works like that. Theres a reason that therapists get special training for this. If people want a post on ERP I can make one at some point.

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Actually let’s drag me with the squirrel thing as the example- fellow OCD Folks get out a pen and paper and try breaking down one of yours;

Obsession:Squirrel will be murdered

Trigger: seeing a squirrel

Intrusive thought: Graphic images of a squirrel being murdered by a hawk/ impaling depending on the day

Misinterpretation/feared consequence: Squirrel will be killed and its all my fault

Somatic and Psychological Anxiety:intense anxiety, palms sweating, heart racing,

Compulsions/Rituals: Must stare at the squirrel to prevent bad things from happening,

Now imagine if that is every time you see a fucking squirrel. You have somehow become completely and totally transfixed on a squirrel and nothing is going to pull your attention away or the squirrel dies- which your mind is giving you lovely images of btw.

Cute right?

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Below are the subtypes with general information/example thoughts/ and how some of these have impacted me socially because apparently some people dont understand that mental illnesses impact their social lives?? yall...

Social: This can range from ‘ i am constantly thinking i did something wrong so i have to ask for reassurance that we are still friends’ to completely unrealistic worries. Maybe its an intrusive thought that ‘ your voice is annoying them’ . There’s reassurance seeking, internal and external checking.

It makes friendships extremely difficult and exhausting. You’re not trying to get to know someone with an annoying frat boy egging on anxiety in your brain. This can also manifest as having strict rules for yourself and ethical codes.

My therapist likes to say she could give us (folks with OCD) a pile of hundred dollar bills and come back and they’d all be returned. Because OCD makes you so strict and morally confined. Which ISNT fun. Like I dont get pleasure over having to memorize the entire Code of Conduct!

Social Media: Its the bane of human existence some days and a lifeline the next. But what if everytime your follower count was an odd/even number it sent you into a panic attack. What if you spent all your time with intrusive thoughts that somehow someone misinterpreted a post or that someone is going to be harmed by a post you made about tapirs.

You may be forced to block people to get your number down or keep pornbots on your blog to keep your number what you like (see there is a use for them! We sacrifice those before actual users!) You may be refreshing your page every second because ‘what if you miss a message’. It's going to look a lot like ‘check check check check reassure yourself double check your posts check check check reassure check check FALSE MEMORY check your post etc’

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Clothing/Body Image: When its not Body Dysmorphia it can be OCD. Sometimes this looks like I obsess about a body part and therefore I choose my clothes/hairstyles to hide those. Some personal examples: as a kid I was sure that mind readers exist ( THIS IS AN OCD THING TOO I was so relieved to find that out) and that if i didnt wear a particular hat they would see all these horrible thoughts and it would be revealed what an awful person I was. So I wore the same dumb ass bucket hat for a year (or more I cannot remember but it was a long ass time).

I was once so fixated on being given a compliment on my eye color that I wore sunglasses (even at night) to a summer camp. And if any of those teen girls in that cabin that stood up and mocked me in a crowded lunch hall by singing ‘i wear my sunglasses at night’ you all owe me 40$.

Even younger still I had intrusive thoughts. Like say, if anyone noticed I was female that i would be kidnapped so I chopped my hair very short. I altered my appearance to be very androgynous and even switched to walking more masculine. Because omg if your hips move someones going to kill you thats just how it works. ( It doesnt help I later figured out I was a lesbian)

Your wardrobe may be impacted by OCD and yes so can your body image.

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Also yes the fear of mind readers is also a thing; i always thought I was somehow faking OCD because yes that is also a…..

Faking: Do you value telling the truth? Do you detest lying ? Boy Howdy do I have some news for you. OCD is going to try and convince you that YOU LIED. Whether it was on a chastity pledge to get a free sandwich or in a conversation you just HAD. This links a lot with false memory OCD.

Another aspect is OCD makes us doubt we have OCD and tries to convince us we have any other diagnosis under the sun and we are obviously faking our OCD.

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Sexual Orientation OCD; It is as it is called. Sexual Orientation OCD is what happens when your brain goes ‘hold on what if you’re not this orientation what if you are THAT’. It doesn’t matter where on the LGBT umbrella you fall you will have OCD trying to convince you otherwise. From compulsive staring at members of the same/opposite gender to compulsively reassuring or checking with yourself to ensure that ‘ no no you are in fact THIS orientation.’

This can range in behavior from binge watching porn, staring compulsively to check that there is OR is NOT attraction,self checking past experiences and memories, analyzing your clothing and your lifestyle in painful and intricate methods.

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False Memory OCD; False memory OCD is basically your brain sitting you in a noir interrogation room, handcuffing you to a chair grilling you. It demands that you did *insert bad thing here*. This can range from anything from something Harm based to pretty much *anything* from other OCD subtypes. Which is quite delightful really.

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Sensorimotor OCD; Sensorimotor OCD is obsessive body responses. These can be ‘ I have to cough really hard and really feel it right in my chest and if I can’t get it right I have to cough until I do’. This can be counting your heartbeats. Trying to check yourself that you in fact have a heart and checking and reassuring that it is still beating. It can be hyper-awareness of swallowing or even swallowing repeatedly. It is anything with selective attention; ie its an automated process but your OCD is forcing you to be aware of it.

Your OCD makes you aware of the sensation of, say, breathing, and then it convinces you that if you stop paying attention to it you will stop breathing. So now you’re horribly aware and focused solely on breathing and breathing alone. It keeps me up most nights with the pounding anxiety fueled by the pressure of ‘if you stop focusing on breathing you will stop breathing completely’ or waiting to feel that last heartbeat in your chest.

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Existential OCD; You ever feel existential ? Existential OCD is like having a very aggressive existential crisis that turns you into NEEDING answers IMMEDIATELY. This can look anything from hours panic scrolling the net to panic inducing anxiety because you don't know what happens after death. The thoughts are like foghorns on a misty sea.

This sounds basic and the only example i can give is as a teeny tiny 7 year old I had a panic attack in bed screaming that ‘ what if im a dinosaur and im asleep and i wake up and my whole family is GONE’.

To be fair I did like dinosaurs a lot.

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Harm OCD; This is pretty self explanatory but I will give more details. Harm OCD is OCD demanding that you will/could/can/may have/might harmed yourself/others/any living creature and that you alone are responsible.

This means anything from getting anxious driving over crosswalks because ‘what if you dont see one and hit someone and its all your fault and you hit someone go back and make sure you havent hit anyone’ to ‘im holding a knife so im going to accidentally stab someone’ to ‘ i didnt see my cat this morning and now im at work and think she must be dead and i am responsible for her demise.’

It can be as simple as ‘if i use a pencil i will stab myself in the eye’ or as complex as ‘ i may accidentally say a slur’/ ‘ i am going to say this horrible thing out loud if i cannot control myself.’ It can also be images of terror or racist/sexist/ableist jokes in your mind that repeat like a broken record.

(Please note from section 1 that this is extremely anxiety provoking and not something you would do. OCD preys on what we respect the most.)

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pOCD; Tumblr listen the fuck up because I am tired of seeing people get called shit on this website for having this mental illness. People who experience pOCD are not pedophiles, they do not get any pleasure or benefit. The thoughts and images are meant to induce harm to the person experiencing them. Children are normally the trigger for this and the resulting images can be very graphic. Again you aren’t attracted to children- thoughts of them getting harmed hurt you so your OCD makes you see them.

Know this so you can advocate for folks with pOCD in real life. Remember we are here. We are suffering and we are terrified of your children.

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Poisoning others/or in your food; Life isn’t medieval anymore but sometimes OCD demands we have a food taster or that we obsessively worry that we may kill someone with our cooking. Personally I struggle with colorblindness so I am constantly fretful over cooking any sort of meat so it’s difficult for me to cook it.

However this also comes as; obsessive horrible thoughts of your cooking kill someone or that you have somehow/accidentally poisoned someone’s food (even if you haven’t touched it or been within a foot of it ) or that someone has poisoned YOUR food even if no one has touched it except you. You’re going to be picking apart your food or unable to eat out at all.

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Emotional Contamination: It’s similar to magical thinking and this terrifying prospect of mind readers. Emotional contamination can manifest as anything from intense worry over somehow gaining someone else’s negative personality traits.

Or that somehow by interacting with any role of someone horrible will make YOU somehow also responsible for the horribleness. There is usually a person or a type of person that is a trigger, but it can also be location based.

This is one subtype where magical thinking and superstition are apparent.

For instance; as a teen if a male was in my space or had physical contact;like shaking hands,giving a high five, being in my room etc. I would have to go around and physically touch all the objects that I perceive they may have also touched as a way to cancel out their presence.

This includes wiping off myself to negate even the touch of family members. It really hurts peoples feelings, my father was especially hurt by this.

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Physical Contamination: This goes beyond physical dirt and grime. Most of us dont have spotless homes because if you’re having a fist fight with your brain everyday cleaning falls by the wayside just like it would for anyone else. Physical contamination holds 2 things: physical contamination obsessions AND compulsive cleaning behaviors/rituals. We believe that a small amount of a contaminate can cover large surfaces.

Oh, and did I mention its not JUST dirt/germs/viruses. The list is expansive but heres a mixed bag of what they can be: sticky substances,dead animals,glitter (FUCKING GLITTER),negative words or language,colors, numbers, surfaces in general, food, people, and activities. There is also a hyper responsibility to protect yourself and others from ‘contamination’.

Strangely there is a magical separation between the contaminated world and the ‘clean’ one. Spaces designated as clean would be a bedroom/bathroom/workspace where you are most active. That space is where the compulsions and intrusive thoughts occur. Its not I MUST CLEAN EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME. Otherwise I would be working cleaning houses because why the hell not amiright?

A real world example from a colleague would be a young man with physical contamination OCD is struck with such intrusive thoughts about cleaning that they refuse to allow anyone in their room or any animals in their home. But they are not able to even flush the toilet, take out the trash, wash dishes, or do garbage because of their intrusive thoughts.

The most famous would be compulsive hand washing but I feel it is important to also note OTHER aspects of physical contamination because everyone sees the hand scrubbing stereotype.

Other compulsions include intricate rituals, not touching the floor (i played X-treme the floor is lava during college. I couldnt let my feet touch the floor because it was ‘dirty’),excessive showering (2-8+ hour showers guys, 8 hour showers. Thats what we’re talking about.)

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Relationship OCD: This comes as no surprise that yes you will have intrusive thoughts that you are somehow harming/ will harm/ may accidentally harm your significant other. Whether that be by physical or emotional means. It can look like ‘ I may have lied to her about how much I love her’, ‘ i may not actually love her and I may be leading her on’, and ‘ I must be corrupting her’. These can extend to certain physical activities with false memory OCD as a cherry on top. A great finishing garnish to leave you feeling absolutely dismayed and unable to trust your own perception.

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Scrupulosity: Religion! Whatever that may be! Its a thing with OCD. With Scrupulosity obsessive thoughts run all over the board from; you committed a sin and forgot about it you monster to having to pray continuously/ a certain time/ until its right. What is right?Ask OCD that’s the only person who knows.

We are fairly certain my grandfather had OCD because he went to church for every single Catholic Mass. Every single day. Every. Single. Day. That’s not a healthy amount of attendance(I'm calling you out posthumously because I care Robert!). This can also look like: praying a certain amount of times. Praying until you do it ‘right’. Confessing every single potential sin. Cataloguing and dwelling over ‘sinful’ things.

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Symmetry or Just Right OCD: Symmetry OCD is the runner up for ‘most likely recognized on tv shows’ award.

Symmetry OCD convinces you that if *insert thing here* isnt symmetrical or ‘just right’ (a magical position or number of objects that makes 0 logical sense) that something bad will happen.

This can range from the known; rearranging things. But it also looks like buying more objects until you reach the right amount and even throwing out objects if theres ‘too many’.

It can range from ‘the walls are percievably not straight so now i avoid that room at all costs otherwise i will be trapped traveling the edges of the wall with my eyes otherwise it will fall in and murder us ALL.’ to ‘ this historical bust is one inch off to the left and now all i see is visions of it breaking against the ground.’

So that is what I have time for. 9 pages on subtypes and basic information. If you find yourself wanting me information all of this is easily accessible online. So go, be free and dont ever compare people to Monk again. Write Batman and Scott Summers with OCD. Give us ACTUAL representation and not throw away joke lines. We are here. Our suffering isnt funny. We deserve representation too.

#OCD #writing help #OCD resources.#*drops 10 pages onto your dash* whoops

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wavesmp3 · 4 years

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eye choose number 13 + anyone you want! i tried to choose the driest one mwhahahhahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahhaagaga

[breaking the rules] 13. the first glass of fresh water - sangyeon (the boyz) x reader - dystopian au | wc. 1.3k - a/n: hehe choco i’m actually really glad you chose this prompt for the reason you did, it sort of became a challenge for myself like how much can i twist the prompt into something wild and tbh i had wayyy too many ideas for what this could be, but the one I went with is set in the same world and loosely related to “you hide; i’ll seek”

—

sangyeon is a rule follower.

so when someone above his pay grade tells him to give you, the capital’s most recent prisoner and alleged arson of the embassy building, a glass of water and nothing else, he does exactly that. of course it doesn’t help that you down the glass too fast, too eagerly. as if it’s the first glass of fresh water you’ve had in years. it doesn’t help that you hold the empty glass upside above your mouth, waiting for even the very last drop to fall in. and it certainly doesn’t help that you meet his eyes from across the cell, hold out the dry glass, and whisper, “please. one more.”

sangyeon is a rule follower. even when every ounce of his consciousness tells him not to be one.

—

sangyeon learns pretty quickly that you’ll probably never grow to like him.

he figures that when you refuse to get up as he brings you food for the third day in a row, it’s probably better that you’re ignoring him completely rather than screaming in his face or throwing glass at his feet like some have done before.

and there’s one particular morning where you must be too hungry to wait, that you meet him by the door of the cell as he slides the tray towards you.

“the least they could do,” you mutter scornfully reaching for the glass of water first, “is give us some good food.”

sangyeon doesn’t say anything in the moment, isn’t even sure you wanted him to hear. and yet despite that, he finds himself sneaking some of the guard food onto your tray before handing you your next meal.

—

“you know there’s this saying,” you murmur one day when sangyeon comes to deliver you a meal and a glass of water as he’s told to do, “down in the basing district. people say that if you end up at the peaks, you’re as good as dead.”

sangyeon had heard the lanier prisons called that before. he assumes the name comes from the mountain range surrounding it. a prison in between the peaks. but he’s less surprised by the name you call his dreaded place of work, and more surprised by the fact that you’ve even spoken to him with what sounds like a little less venom than before.

“are you from there?” he asks swiping his id tag against the scanner to open the tray slot of your cell door. “the basing district?”

“yeah.” you return, standing up from the corner of the cell. you reach for the water first. “just one glass?”

you down the entire drink before he can even respond. “it’s the rule.” and after a moment of your blank stare taunting him further, he adds: “not really my call to make.”

“and so what? you just blindly follow every rule you’re told?”

“well, no i-“ he stops himself. suddenly noticing something different about your hair. between the cell bars, just barely, sangyeon can see that you’ve made the effort to style it today. “yeah.” he finally responds. “i guess i do.”

you laugh, a low sound that reminds sangyeon of spite more than anything else. you grab the tray from the slot, and walk back to your corner muttering, “must make for an easy, privileged life then.”

and with the way you say it, sangyeon can’t say for sure he knows what you mean.

—

“i had this friend back in basing,” you tell sangyeon on his break as he pours you a second glass of water, “who made the best cookies and tea.”

he hands you a cracker and takes one for himself. “what’s his name?”

“if i told you i’d have to kill you?”

sangyeon stops mid-bite, sits back slightly, and stares at you staring at him gravely. for a second, he’d forgotten that you’re technically a prisoner. “oh.”

your face suddenly crumbles in laughter. “i’m kidding. his name was jacob.”

“was?”

sangyeon’s never heard a laugh die so quickly.

—

walking you to your daily interrogations is one of sangyeon’s newer responsibilities. it’s a job he’s done before, definitely not one he’s fond of. but for some reason, making the walk from the cells to the interrogation rooms, feels inexplicably foreign when he does it with you.

sangyeon’s been told time and time again to never initiate conversation with the prisoners, and yet today he almost doesn’t resist the urge to ask how you feel. luckily, you start talking before sangyeon can break one of his rules. “these interrogations are pointless really.” you mutter, and as impossible as it seems, he thinks you sound a little bit sad. he frowns. “it’s always the same questions.”

you reach the door to the room before sangyeon can make out a response.

the interrogation rooms are small. tiny really. with four black walls, a small table in the middle, two plastic chairs, and a two-way mirror on the farthest wall. usually, after dropping the prisoners off, sangyeon leaves from this wing of the lanier prisons, scurries away from his least favorite part of the peaks as fast as he can. but today, sangyeon finds himself seated alone on the other side of the two-way mirror, watching you fiddle uncomfortably in between your handcuffs. you both wait for the interrogator to come.

she does eventually, and she looks exhausted more than anything. she follows the rules, almost as precisely as sangyeon does, first hooking you up to the lie-detector, test-running the signals, and finally starting the recorder before having said a single word.

“okay,” she gruffs, flipping a page in her binder, “let’s just get this over with.”

the interrogation goes faster than sangyeon had imagined it would. he finds himself thinking back to what you had said before entering the room, about the questions being the same, and realizes that you were telling the truth. sangyeon feels like a spectator to a dance of some sort, like he’s watching you both run through a routine that you’ve been practicing for too long.

“your id number?” she asks.

“319507.” the machine flashes green.

“your name?”

“don’t have one.” red.

“are you from the mei district?”

no, sangyeon thinks to himself remembering the conversation you once shared.

“you mean the wastes?” you scoff.

the interrogator sighs. “are you from the mei district, also known as the wastes?”

“yes.” green.

“do you know someone by the name of yoon jeonghan?”

“no.” red.

“were you ever in contact with joshua hong?”

“no.” green.

“is jacob bae dead.”

“no.” red.

“have you ever heard of the Resistance?”

“yes.” red.

“are you a member of the Resistance?”

“maybe?”

“are you a member of the Resistance? yes or no?”

“yes.” green.

“did you know they had plans to infiltrate the lanier prisons?”

“yes.” red.

“did you know they had plans to set fire to the embassy building in the basing district?”

“no.” green.

“did you set fire to the embassy building?”

you falter at that. pausing for the first time since beginning. hesitating for what the interrogator must think is a second too long. suddenly, you look up, eyes glazed over as if watching your reflection in the two-way mirror. it just so happens that your eyes find sangyeon.

finally, you answer: “no.”

and with the way you say it, sangyeon knows it’s the truth

(the machine flashes red.)

—

it’s a few days after that particular interrogation that sangyeon has the guts to ask.

“did you do it?” he begins timidly.

“do what?”

“burn the embassy building?”

he meets your eyes, and for a while you don’t answer, you just stare back.

finally, taking a sip from your glass of water, you say to sangyeon, “i think you already know.”

sangyeon takes a sip from his own glass, and somehow, it feels like the first.

you’re right, about a lot of things really, but concerning this, specifically, you’re right: sangyeon does know. he also knows that he’s a rule follower. except that when he finds himself sneaking back towards your cell after his shift with a stolen set of keys and an id tag that doesn’t belong to him, he supposes he hasn’t been much of a rule follower since the day he met you.

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